


Perdition

by morningsound15



Series: Perdition [1]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Cheating, F/F, Infidelity, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2018-10-03 10:06:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 89,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10242218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningsound15/pseuds/morningsound15
Summary: Perdition,noun: (in Christian theology) a state of eternal punishment and damnation into which a sinful and unpenitent person passes after death.~~They’ve been doing this for years. It’s almost crazy, how familiar it all is. And every time, their excuses get flimsier and flimsier.Beca still has a boyfriend, Chloe still has to graduate, and yet time and time again they find themselves tangled up together, naked in bed or stuffed into a bathroom stall or sneaking out of a party.And Beca still has a boyfriend, and Chloe knows it’s wrong, but she just can’t seem to stop.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A reimagining of Beca and Chloe over the course of their four years together at Barden. 
> 
> Warning: this fic contains cheating, infidelity, and somewhat-dubious consent (drunk sex, sex that someone doesn’t remember, occasional lack of definitive and sober consent, etc.). If that is triggering for you, or if that squicks you, please be warned (I won’t be offended if you do not want to read on). While both characters do actively want the sex to happen, I understand there are consent issues involved when one or both parties is drunk, and there are moments which can be construed as coercive, where one character ‘gives in’ to the other, etc.
> 
> This fic is a little darker than my usual. It focuses on some not-so-happy things.
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Also follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

The first time it happens, Chloe convinces herself it’s just an accident.

They’re both drunk (stumbling, laughing, almost incoherent), and they’ve barely known each other more than a few weeks. And yeah, sure, they’ve seen each other naked (Chloe isn’t ashamed of crashing Beca’s shower for a single second, because she’s comfortable with her body and knows she’s hot, and anyway it brings Beca into the Bellas so what is there to be ashamed of?), but they _barely_ know each other.

And _yes_ , Chloe pushed and advocated for letting Beca into the Bellas, it’s true. And _yes_ , Aubrey had given her a weird look (that kept getting weirder the longer and longer she fought to give Beca a spot), but that doesn’t mean they know each other.

And sure, when Chloe saw Beca at the org fair on that very first day, headphones around her neck and wearing _way_ more black than should have been strictly comfortable in the Atlanta heat, Chloe had been mesmerized. And sure, when Beca had walked into the Bellas audition with no song prepared, grabbed the cup of pens from Chloe’s desk, and sat cross-legged on that stage and sang like she was still in summer camp, Chloe couldn’t tear her eyes away.

Sure, all of that was true.

But they don’t _know_ each other.

(Earlier in the night Chloe stumbled over to Beca on swaying feet, grabbed her hands, and proclaimed that they were going to be “fast friends,” and Beca laughed and winked at her and made some joke about being naked and Chloe felt her stomach bottom out so suddenly that she wondered if she was tipping over backwards.)

They don’t know each other.

They don’t know each other, but there’s still something about Beca that draws Chloe to her, that makes her _want_ to know her. There’s something about her that’s so interesting, so _confusing_ , and it _isn’t_ just that Beca is moody and wears a bunch of earrings and has a great voice and can effortlessly match pitch (all of those things are interesting too, don’t get her wrong). But there’s something else. Something Chloe can’t quite put a finger on.

The first time it happens, Chloe is so drunk that her eyes can’t focus on anything in front of her. All she knows is that Beca is warm under her arm, that Beca is leaning into her, laughing as she helps Chloe navigate her way back to the apartment she shares with Aubrey, while Chloe continues to sing that Andy Grammer song under her breath, out of key and off-tempo.

(The next morning she vaguely recalls at some point in the night making out with… some guy. Sam? Tom? She isn’t totally sure of his name, and since he’s a white guy of average build with short brown hair, she’s pretty sure she’ll never see him again.)

(It won’t exactly be a tragedy.)

The first time it happens, it happens because Beca is good, because Beca is kind, because Beca is worried about her friend getting home safely. The first time it happens, it happens because Chloe is so drunk she can’t see straight; too drunk to totally comprehend the consequences of her actions; too drunk to remember that she and Beca are _technically_ teammates now; too hopped up on the atmosphere of the party and the excitement of being back to school to recall that _maybe_ she shouldn’t be doing this.

(Now that she thinks about it she’s not sure if Beca was drunk or not. She can’t remember seeing her drink anything, but she also can’t _really_ remember many of the details of the party in general. She was distracted by Aubrey and the flurry of all of the acapella people and the music and Sam/Tom and making sure the rest of the Bellas were having a good time, so maybe Beca _was_ as drunk as her after all. Just because she didn’t _see_ her drink anything didn’t mean she spent the night sober, didn’t mean she wasn’t also plastered. But then again, she couldn’t be sure, so… maybe she was drunk, maybe not.)

(Chloe’s not sure if it matters.)

(It definitely matters.)

The first time it happens, Beca leaves Chloe leaning against the wall outside of her apartment, eyes closed and humming along to some tune only she can hear while Beca fishes around in Chloe’s pockets for her apartment key.

“If you wanted to feel me up, Becs, all you had to do was ask,” Chloe says, eyes closed, her voice dreamy and far away.

She isn’t slurring her words but she’s equal parts intoxicated and sleepy so she doesn’t _exactly_ have excellent control over her brain-to-mouth filter. She isn’t slurring her words but she isn’t exactly sure of what she’s saying.

She remembers Beca laughing next to her. “I’ll remember that for next time,” she says as she finally frees Chloe’s key from the confines of her jeans.

“Why wait until next time?” Chloe asks, blinking heavy eyes open and winking exaggeratedly.

Beca just rolls her eyes, pushing the door open and moving again to support Chloe and lead her inside. Her arm slips around Chloe’s waist as the older girl allows herself to be guided through the open doorway.

Beca exhales a heavy breath once they reach the main room, again slipping out from underneath Chloe’s extended arm. Chloe wobbles a little where she stands, confused as to her sudden lack of balance, confused as to where her support has gone, confused as to why she suddenly feels so cold and lonely standing inside of her dark apartment.

“Please don’t fall while I lock your door,” Beca implores, shooting Chloe a look that clearly says ‘ _I can’t believe I have to look after this drunk idiot._ ’

At least, Chloe’s _pretty_ sure that’s what the look is saying. (She’s kind of drunk; she can’t really be sure of anything.)

Beca continues to talk as she turns her back on Chloe. “You’re kinda heavy and I’m kinda small and I don’t think I could haul your ass all the way to your bed, so do me a favor and stay upright.”

Truth be told, Chloe is a little insulted.

She might be drunk but she is _not_ an idiot, and _certainly_ not a _drunk idiot_. Besides, like she can’t manage standing still for ten seconds while Beca closes her front door? Like she needs someone watching her constantly and taking care of her? Like she’s some toddler learning how to walk for the first time, instead of a 21-almost-22-year-old woman?

She huffs and stares at Beca’s back, suddenly feeling a desperate need to prove herself.

(If she ever thinks about it, those moments leading up to that first time — which she does; the first few weeks after that first time she practically _obsesses_ over those preliminary moments — Chloe will recognize that it’s _this_ thought that is ultimately her downfall; it’s this moment of stubborn pride and a vindictive desire to show off that leads to every mistake that is to come.)

She steps forward, her legs a little more stable now that she’s moving.

Beca must hear her approaching, because she’s only just gotten the door closed when she turns quickly, eyes wide and confused as she takes in Chloe’s rapidly approaching figure.

She backs up, one two three steps, until her back is flush with Chloe’s apartment door, until Chloe is hovering, just inches in front of her, eyes thick and slow but incredibly intense.

Beca’s hands are pressed flat against the door (Chloe remembers how she almost looked _scared_ , in the moment), a flush high on her cheeks as she eyes Chloe carefully.

Beca clears her throat. “And what’s with you, just now?”

Chloe doesn’t answer her, just takes two steps forward until she can feel the heat of Beca’s hips underneath her hands.

Beca sucks in a breath of air, surprised and a little shaken, and bites her lip. “Chloe,” she practically whispers, voice low and eyes hooded. (Chloe isn’t sure if it’s her own dizzy, blurry vision, but she’s _pretty_ sure she remembers that Beca’s eyes were glued to her lips during the entire exchange.)

Beca gulps. “What are you—?”

“I’m not a drunk idiot,” Chloe says, moving ever so slightly closer. Their noses are almost brushing now, and Chloe goes nearly cross-eyed trying to keep her gaze on Beca’s face.

Beca shakes her head. “I never said—”

“Besides,” Chloe interrupts, “I don’t want to wait until next time.”

“Chloe, I—”

She kisses her. Like an idiot, she just surges forward and kisses her.

Beca, who had already been pressed against the front door, seems to recoil and almost jerk away. Her head smacks against the door and she whimpers into Chloe’s mouth (at least, Chloe’s _pretty_ sure that’s why she whimpers).

But despite the fact that she tries to jerk away (does she try to pull back, or is it just the pressure of Chloe’s body against hers that makes her fall against the door?) Beca kisses her back instantly, arching up into Chloe’s embrace, forced to stand on her toes in order to put them at equitable heights. Chloe’s arms wrap themselves around Beca’s waist and Beca’s hands wind into her hair and then they’re moving, stumbling, falling over each other as they make their way through the apartment and into Chloe’s bedroom.

She doesn’t really remember a whole lot, after that. She thinks she remembers Beca’s breath, hot in her ear; thinks she remembers Beca’s thighs, clenching and trembling around her head as she rocks into orgasm after orgasm against Chloe’s mouth; thinks she remembers the way it felt to have Beca’s teeth nipping at her collarbone as Beca’s fingers piston in and out of her.

(Then again, she isn’t really sure she remembers any of that at all.)

When she wakes up the next morning to an empty bed, brain pounding in her skull and weak, queasy stomach punishing her for the previous night’s alcoholic indulgence, Chloe is able to half-convince herself that she imagined all of it.

And look, even if she _hadn’t_ imagined it, it _definitely_ didn’t happen on purpose. They fell into bed together because of a lack of foresight and an abundance of alcohol, not because of anything else. It was a one-time thing; a fluke; a drunken hook up.

And it _definitely_ wasn’t going to happen again.

Either way, Chloe figures, it’s fine. It either hadn’t happened at all, or it had been completely accidental. It didn’t matter either way, because either way it didn’t mean anything, it was an accident, and it was never going to happen again.

Either way, they never talk about it.

**

It doesn’t happen again for months.

They just do what they always do. They rehearse, Chloe goes to class, Beca starts work at the radio station on campus, they rehearse some more, they go to mixers with the other groups, they do homework, Aubrey forces them to do ‘Bellas team bonding activities,’ they rehearse some more (and they _definitely_ never talk about what happened between them).

They do what they always do, killing time in some weird purgatory that Chloe isn’t even entirely sure she’s stuck in.

She doesn’t know what to do, but she takes her cues from Beca. And if Beca doesn’t want to talk about it — if Beca wants to ignore it and pretend like it never happened, like it was just some silly drunken hookup, then Chloe can do that, too.

She wonders, sometimes, if Beca remembers. Wonders if Beca thinks about it as often as she does. Wonders if Beca wakes up from dreams, hot and wet and aching; wonders if Beca bites her lip when she masturbates to stop herself from moaning Chloe’s name; wonders if she’s the only one whose stomach swoops when they make eye contact across crowded rooms; wonders if she’s the only one who can’t stop staring at lips and hands and the curve of a smooth neck.

She thinks she must be.

She thinks Beca wouldn’t look at her — smiling and happy, rolling her eyes and throwing around teasing elbows, head tipped back with laughter at one of Chloe’s terrible jokes — if she thought about their night together the way Chloe did.

She thinks she must be the only one who thinks about it, the only one of them who _really_ remembers it.

At least, until it happens again.

The second time it happens, they’re drunk. Again.

(Chloe really thinks she should maybe stop drinking around Beca.)

They don’t talk about the fact that Beca has spent every night this past week hanging out with Jesse, watching movies and munching on popcorn and laughing and joking and eating too much pizza. They don’t talk about the fact that Aubrey has started to truly _despise_ the Trebles to a frightening degree, don’t talk about the way Aubrey’s nostrils flare whenever she sees Beca and Jesse exchange smiles and wave across the quad, don’t talk about the way Beca’s eyes jump to Chloe’s sometimes (only sometimes) with something close to _guilt_ whenever Chloe, Beca, and Jesse happen to all be in the same room.

(Chloe tries to avoid being in the same room as them.)

The second time it happens, they’re in the middle of a frat party — having been dragged along, somewhat unwittingly, by an overeager Fat Amy.

(Fat Amy, confusingly, seems to have quickly and easily established herself as Barden University’s ‘It Girl’; a party just isn’t a party if Fat Amy isn’t invited. At least, that’s the apparent vibe on campus. She has more friends than the lot of them combined. It’s weird, and Chloe doesn’t _really_ get it, but it means that she hears about _literally_ every single party happening on campus on any given day. So, she can’t exactly complain.)

The second time it happens, Chloe is wearing a light green dress with a skirt that bounces around above her knees, more ‘summertime church gathering’ than ‘college frat party,’ but she’s cute and bright and the sweet girl-next-door look has never steered her wrong before.

They’ve been drinking, because they’re at a frat so of _course_ they’ve been drinking, and she can feel Beca’s eyes on her legs, on her ass, tracing the curve of her neck, lingering on her chest.

(They haven’t been drunk together since that first night, with the aca-initiation party and their possibly-regrettable sexcapades, and Chloe thinks that if she had known _this_ would be Beca’s response to her after only a few drinks, she would have suggested a party a _lot_ sooner.)

(But then she feels like a bad feminist, like she’s taking advantage, like she’s purposefully trying to get her friend intoxicated so that she can sleep with her, and she feels almost sick to her stomach. She reminds herself of the importance of consent, shakes away those terrible thoughts, and promises herself that she will only do something with someone who gives active and aggressive consent and permission.)

(She drinks more, and her good judgment and good intentions fly out the window.)

The second time it happens, Chloe can feel the heat of Beca’s eyes burning into her skin, and so she dances a little harder, flips her hair with a little more direction, moves her hips a little more surely against the nameless, faceless man whose hands rest on her hips, body pressed tightly to her back.

She looks up with hooded eyes, catches Beca’s scorching gaze, and (she’ll never know where she gets the courage) _smirks_ at her as she grinds into the guy behind her.

Beca can tell she’s doing. Chloe can see it written plainly on her face. She may be dancing with what’s-his-name, but Chloe and Beca _both_ know that she’s showing off for someone else entirely.

Chloe bites her lip and cranes her neck and rolls her hips again.

What’s-his-face grips her hips harder — she can feel his erection pressing into her ass but she literally couldn’t care less.

Her hips circle and he bends his head to mouth at her neck and it seems to be the last straw.

Beca puts her drink down on a nearby table and stalks towards her.

“Chloe,” she says as she gets closer, and Chloe can smell the alcohol on her breath (or maybe it’s just the odor of spilled beer permeating the air and seeping into the carpet), “I need you. Aubrey got sick and she needs help.”

Chloe nods and pulls away from whoever-the-man without even glancing behind her to see if he’s disappointed to lose her company.

She couldn’t care less.

Aubrey, coincidentally, did not come to this party. If she needs any help, it’s help studying for the Chem midterm she has Monday morning.

She’s certainly not throwing up in the bushes of some crowded, dirty frat.

Chloe and Beca both know this.

Chloe follows her anyway.

Beca drags her up the stairs, trying doorknob after doorknob until one finally turns under her fingers. Chloe, for her part, follows her around like a puppy, a slave to Beca’s every whim. She thinks that she should maybe act of her own volition, that she should maybe say something or ask some kind of question, but she’s a little drunk and a little warm and it’s easier to let Beca lead her around than to have to make her own decisions.

When she does find an open room, Beca half-cheers in triumph.

Chloe would almost call it cute, if Beca didn’t immediately turn to her, eyes bright and smile predatory, and yank her inside the bathroom without another word.

Before she’s even sure what’s happening, Beca has her pressed up against the door. She fumbles for the lock as she claims Chloe’s mouth in a messy, sloppy kiss that’s more about tongues and teeth than it is about lips.

(It isn’t the best kiss Chloe’s ever had, it isn’t the sweetest, it isn’t the most skilled, but it makes arousal pool between her thighs and her heart stutter all the same.)

Beca pushes her skirt up and shoves her underwear aside, her fingers immediately slipping over the wetness she finds at the apex of Chloe’s thighs. Chloe spreads her legs, Beca’s fingers find her clit, and they both groan at the sensation.

“God, I’ve been thinking about doing this for like a month,” Beca whispers, mouth somewhere between Chloe’s lips, neck, and ear.

Chloe thinks she should stop Beca, thinks that maybe they should talk about this some more, thinks that maybe she should pull Beca’s hand out from under her dress so that they can address the fact that _apparently Beca has been thinking about this too_.

But then Beca’s mouth is on her neck, hot and biting; Beca’s fingers slip inside of her and Chloe gasps and arcs into her, tilts her head back as her breath is ripped from her throat. She can _feel_ Beca’s smirk against her neck, can feel the floor unsteady beneath her feet, can feel her head spinning, can feel her body sinking into the bathroom door and _fuck_ she’s drunk.

She moans again and Beca laughs, low in her throat, and adds a third finger, stretching Chloe almost to the point of pain.

She loves it.

“I’ve wanted to fuck you for like, _weeks,_ dude.”

And Chloe _could_ say something, could chastise Beca for the way she calls her ‘dude’ while she’s literally buried to the knuckle inside of her, could pull away and ask questions and demand answers.

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything.

She lifts her leg higher to wrap it around Beca’s waist, lets her head fall heavy against the door and screws her eyes shut, allowing Beca (perhaps foolishly — again without foresight) to bite and suck at her neck and at the edge of her jaw.

The sounds of the party seep in from under the door, the bass thumping and shaking the wood, reverberating through Chloe’s chest and making it even _more_ difficult to breathe.

The sounds of the party are loud, but it doesn’t stop Chloe from hearing Beca’s palm slapping against her cunt as she fucks her with ruthless, reckless abandon.

Chloe chokes down a scream as Beca pounds her, arm shaking from the effort.

Chloe scrambles for purchase, hands grasping at Beca’s hair, Beca’s shoulders, her own dress. Her toes curl inside her shoes as every muscle in her body seems to clench at once.

She cums just like that, pressed against the bathroom door of a random frat house, desperate and shaking and wobbly and drunk.

Beca coaxes her down slowly, allowing Chloe’s clenching, shaking body to relax before she removes her fingers (Chloe gasps at the sensation, at the pull of them, even though she’s absolutely _drenched_ ).

Beca sucks her fingers into her mouth, licking them clean, and Chloe thinks that she might just pass out then and there.

“D’you—” Chloe stops herself when her voice comes out raw and hoarse, dry and shaky from trying to silence her screams. She clears her throat and tries again. “Do you want me to…?”

But Beca just grins and shakes her head, shooting Chloe a wink. “No sweat. We should get back to the party.”

“The… the party. Right.”

Beca laughs and stands on her toes, flattening Chloe’s mussed hair so that she looks more presentable (and _not_ like she just got fucked, fully clothed, in a grimy bathroom in the middle of a crowded event). “Don’t worry about it,” she says with another wink, reaching around to unlock the door. As she walks out of the hot room, she throws over her shoulder, “You can pay me back next time!”

Chloe walks straight into the doorframe.

**

The third time it happens it’s rough, and angry. The third time it happens they can’t blame it on alcohol, but they _can_ blame it on frustration and fury with each other (and maybe a little worry, on Chloe’s part, and maybe a little vengeance, on Beca’s). The third time it happens, Beca has just been released from jail. She’s just gotten into a fight with her father and she’s just yelled at Jesse for interfering in her life. Her father’s just told her that she can’t go to LA, and Aubrey’s just told her that, no matter what talent she might have with mixing music and creating mashups, there’s no way they’re deviating from the standard Bellas program.

The third time it happens, Chloe lies and tells herself that she’s just as frustrated with Beca as Beca is with her; lies and tells herself that it doesn’t bother her that she’s clearly an outlet for Beca’s pent up frustration and rage and fury; lies and tells herself that she _isn’t_ worried about the fact that Beca has just been to prison, but is instead incensed with the blatant disregard she showed her fellow Bellas by getting involved in some petty acapella feud.

The third time it happens, Chloe pretends like it _isn’t_ about Beca getting back at Jesse, pretends like it _isn’t_ about Beca proving to everyone else (but mostly herself) that Jesse _isn’t_ her boyfriend and that she _doesn’t_ need him and that she’s _perfectly fine_ without him.

The third time it happens, they don’t talk about the fact that they can almost _feel_ Aubrey’s disapproval hanging in Beca’s empty dorm, don’t mention that they can still hear the way Aubrey had so swiftly shut down Beca’s suggestions to modernize their set.

They ignore all of that.

(Well, Chloe does, at least. She’s not sure how much of it Beca is choosing to ignore, or how much of it Beca is even aware of.)

They ignore it all.

Chloe just sinks back into Beca’s bed and lets Beca fuck her into the mattress, hard and fast and dirty. She doesn’t even get her clothes all the way off. She’s naked from the waist down but her shirt is still on, her bra digging into her back under the fabric, and Chloe hates to admit that she doesn’t really hate the way it makes her feel. Apparently she sort of likes being so desperately wanted, sort of likes getting fucked in a dirty way, sort of likes being used.

(She tries not to think about it.)

She lets Beca bite at her neck, hard enough to leave bruises and red marks that Chloe is forced to skillfully cover with makeup and turtlenecks and scarves for a week and a half.

(When Aubrey laughs at her and winks and makes some crack about Tom, Chloe smiles and lets her think whatever she likes. It’s better than the truth. It’s easier than reality.)

The third time it happens, Beca goes down on her for the first time. After she’s already fucked her practically through the mattress, after Chloe’s already cum once, after her legs are already shaking and her clit is already throbbing, Beca slides down her body and starts fucking her with her tongue, and Chloe _screams_.

Thank God Beca’s roommate decided to clear out when the Bellas invaded her room earlier in the night.

(Beca’s neighbors will probably _hate_ her tomorrow, though.)

She’ll never know… she’ll never understand what it is about Beca that makes her do this, that makes her act and react like this. She’ll never understand how the girl who can barely speak in front of a room full of her closest friends can eat Chloe out like a fucking pro; never understand where she learned to do what she does, where she learned to fuck girls like she does (nothing about Beca should really surprise her anymore, and yet it always does); never understand just how Beca can have this _hold_ over her.

She’ll never know, but as Beca tongues at her clit, she decides she really doesn’t care.

The third time it happens, Beca lets Chloe touch her. She hasn’t, not really, not since that first night (and even then, Chloe’s not entirely sure what happened between them, can’t be totally sure that Beca _did_ let her touch her, fuck her, taste her. But she kind of remembers it so she’s hoping it wasn’t just imagination).

Since she isn’t drunk, Chloe is a little nervous. Which is _confusing_ , because if there’s one thing Chloe Beale _never_ is, it’s nervous. She doesn’t _do_ nervous; she doesn’t _get_ embarrassed. _Especially_ not when it pertains to sex.

She’s good at sex. She _knows_ she’s good at sex. She has nothing to worry about.

But she’s nervous. Her hand, when it slides down Beca’s stomach, wavers a little. When her mouth follows its path, nipping and licking at exposed skin all the way down Beca’s body, she has to pause and remind herself to breathe because she thinks she might be hyperventilating.

(She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t _do_ nervous.)

For all the buildup, for all the ways in which her heart pounds inside her chest, for all of her shaking hands and shot nerves, when she finally gets her mouth on Beca for the first time, she sinks into the familiarity of the motions like she’s been doing it all her life.

She wants to go slow, to really take a few moments to revel in the sensations and to enjoy what she’s doing, to maybe tease Beca and build her up slowly and sweetly, but that isn’t what Beca wants.

Beca clutches at her hair and yanks her closer, thrusts her hips up and grinds them against Chloe’s mouth, gasps and clenches when Chloe adds one and then two fingers. And Chloe hadn’t realized that Beca was vocal in bed, hadn’t realized she was the kind to make noise or talk or moan, but fuck she _never shuts up_. “Yes, Chlo, God… fuck. Fuck just like that. Jesus fuck please, _please_ …”

And, well, who is Chloe to deny her?

**

The fourth time it happens, they’re drunk and they’ve just won Nationals.

(They’re drunk again, because of course they are. They _have_ to be, it seems.)

The fourth time it happens, Chloe has just watched Beca run out into the audience after their set and kiss Jesse square on the mouth, arms thrown around his shoulders while she smiles against his lips and calls him a loser.

The fourth time it happens, they’re both drunk, and Beca and Jesse are… whatever it is Beca and Jesse are.

They’re new. They’re new and happy and giggly, and Jesse can’t stop smiling, even though the Trebles have just lost to their ‘nemeses’ and he really should be a little more downtrodden because the Bellas _stomped_ them (thanks to Beca). They’re new and their hands are all over each other.

Chloe’s glaring. She _knows_ she’s glaring. She knows she’s glaring because she can’t stop looking at them and her stomach is heavy and her heart pounds and her face is flushed with anger and she knows she’s glaring and she knows she has to stop but she just _can’t_.

(Apparently she’s a bit of a masochist.)

Aubrey catches her looking. “Ugh, I know,” she says as she sidles up to Chloe’s right side. Chloe blinks and turns to her, a bright shock of panic setting in momentarily. ( _Does she know? how does she know? who told her? is it that obvious? can she tell I’m jealous?_ ) Aubrey sighs and takes a long sip of her drink. “Can’t believe it. A _Treble_ ,” she says the word like a curse, like she’s just stepped in something foul, her nose turned up in a sneer that Chloe relates to on a deep, vindictive level.

Chloe laughs uncomfortably. “Right. A Treble.”

“The _enemy_ ,” Aubrey stresses with a glower.

Chloe nods. “The enemy.”

Aubrey watches them for a few more seconds. “Well, we’ve done all we can, I guess,” she finally concedes, and _boy_ she must be riding some kind of extraordinary high after their win for her to say what she does next. “And, you know… at least he’s pretty cute. It’s not like… he isn’t _Bumper_.”

Chloe’s throat feels thick. She looks again toward where Beca and Jesse stand, heads bent together and laughing at something, whispering under the loud music, and just nods.

Jesse leaves the after party just before 1, laughs and tells Beca to enjoy the festivities with her teammates without him there as a distraction. He kisses her cheek shyly, leaving both of them blushing and Chloe seeing red.

The fourth time it happens, they’re both drunk, and Chloe thinks this might be her last chance.

She pulls Beca away from the party, away from the celebration, with a desperate look in her eye. She grabs Beca’s hand and drags her off and away from a raucous Fat Amy, who is attempting to beat box (terribly) underneath Cynthia Rose’s rapping.

Everyone is caught in the throws of the party and the celebration. Everyone is cheering and singing and hoisting their trophy and they keep throwing up their cups to toast each other, their pronouncements getting more and more ridiculous as the night wears on.

The point is, no one is going to miss them.

Chloe grabs Beca’s hand and pulls her into a bathroom in the middle of whatever frat party they’ve managed to stumble into.

(Another frat, another bathroom, another drunken night.)

Beca laughs as they kiss. Chloe pretends it doesn’t cut her like a knife.

She unbuttons Beca’s high-waist pants and slips her hand down the front.

It’s a little uncomfortable, and Chloe’s wrist burns with the strain and aches at the odd angle, and she fumbles and she’s a little uncoordinated, but Beca must be _really_ worked up because she’s already wet and she comes undone in under five minutes of Chloe’s haphazard ministrations, her fist clenched tightly between her teeth to stop from making any noise.

When Chloe pulls her hand out from Beca’s underwear, the shorter girl moves to return the favor — gets her fingers to the button of Chloe’s pants, even — but Chloe just shakes her head, puts her hand on Beca’s, and tries to smile. “I’m good. We should get back to the party.”

Beca smiles at her, and Chloe can tell she’s a little confused, but she shrugs nonetheless. “Thanks, Chlo,” she says, with a swift little kiss to Chloe’s mouth. Chloe smiles and nods and bites her tongue to keep from screaming as Beca slips from the room without another word.

She isn’t sure if Beca knows what she does to her, isn’t sure if Beca knows exactly what she’s done with those two little words, but when Chloe goes home that night she cries in the shower.

She tells Aubrey she and Tom just broke up, even though she hasn’t even _seen_ him — let alone spoken to him, kissed him, or slept with him — in nearly a full semester. Aubrey runs her fingers through her hair and coos softly, brings her ice cream and puts on _10 Things I Hate About You_ and gushes about Health Ledger to try and distract her, and Chloe feels sick.

Sick because of everything with Beca, sick because she’s lying to her best friend, sick because if Aubrey knew the truth there’s no _way_ she would still be talking to her.

She closes her eyes and tries to ignore it, but she feels queasy for a week.

**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a lot more angst, and a lot more explicit smut. Also, sexting and phone sex.
> 
> Enjoy, friends.
> 
> Also follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

Chloe vows to herself that when the summer ends and she comes back to Barden that everything’s going to be different.

She didn’t graduate in the spring. She failed Russian Lit, and she needed it for her major, and she didn’t pass so she didn’t graduate.

She had to say goodbye to Aubrey — the only person, sometimes, who was able to keep her sane — and it fucking _sucked_.

She had to say goodbye to Aubrey, and she didn’t graduate when she was supposed to, and she doesn’t know if it’s because she was so distracted trying to win Nationals (with her nodes and the extra rehearsals and her time in the hospital) or if it’s because of everything with Beca weighing so heavily on her mind, or maybe some combination of both, but she didn’t graduate and she has to go back to Barden. She has to hang her head in shame while her parents endlessly dote on her, telling her it’s no worry and no problem and that they love her no matter what, and it _sucks_.

She swears to herself that it’s going to be different. She and Beca have agreed to be co-leaders of the Bellas, and Chloe is _sure_ that with the burden of leadership split between the pair of them, she should be able to tackle that and all of her work and it should be fine. She should be able to devote enough time to helping the Bellas defend their title, and working her off-campus job, and retaking Russian Lit and going to class and studying and doing all of her work. It’ll be fine.

She’ll be fine.

She’ll work harder at school, she’ll study harder, she’ll forget all about her intermittent hookups with Beca over the past year and she’ll focus on school and the Bellas and her friendship with Beca and recruiting new members and keeping the Bellas a strong family and that will be that.

She’ll be fine.

But then they go to aca-initiation night. And Chloe gets drunk.

And she knows. She _knows_ it’s stupid, she _knows_ it’s a mistake, she _knows_ she shouldn’t do it, because she _knows_ she can’t control herself around Beca (and especially not around Beca and alcohol).

But she does anyway. She gets drunk anyway.

She gets drunk and Beca fucks her behind the outdoor amphitheater where they’re holding their party and Chloe moans her name as quietly as she can but she’s not sure it’s quiet enough because Beca has to hold a hand over her mouth so no one comes looking for them.

They emerge from the darkness after only about seven minutes, and Jesse almost immediately finds them, throwing his arm around Beca’s shoulder and kissing her on the side of the head.

Chloe refuses to make eye contact with either of them and slips off back to her room as fast as she can.

That’s the fifth time it happens.

**

After six, Chloe stops counting.

**

At a certain point, she realizes that she hasn’t had sex with _anyone_ since this whole thing with Beca started. It hasn’t even been a conscious decision on her part. She’s just been so busy with school and Bellas and Nationals (and then Nationals again) that she hasn’t even _thought_ about it. She hasn’t _needed_ to think about it. She sleeps with Beca on and off, whenever either one of them needs to, and she hasn’t really felt the urge to go out looking for something else.

But when she realizes this — when she realizes that she hasn’t slept with anyone besides Beca in almost a year — she comes to understand that that’s simply unacceptable. It’s starting to feel _way_ too much like she isn’t sleeping with anyone else because she _only_ wants to sleep with Beca. And that just won’t do.

She spends a good three weeks fucking as many people as she can, guys and girls alike. Sometimes she’s drunk and sometimes she isn’t; sometimes it’s good and sometimes it isn’t; sometimes she cums and sometimes she doesn’t; but it doesn’t make her feel any better. It actually sort of makes her feel worse.

Some of them try to contact her again, some of them smile when they pass her in the halls, and some of them never even acknowledge her.

None of it makes Chloe feel anything other than nauseas guilt and a little regret.

(She _shouldn’t_ feel guilt. Beca’s been fucking Jesse this _entire_ year, it isn’t like she _owes_ her anything, it isn’t like they’re _monogamous_. She shouldn’t feel guilty or nauseous; she shouldn’t regret having random, anonymous sex with random, anonymous people.)

(She still feels guilty.)

When Beca shows up at her door, bottle of wine in hand and an inviting smile on her face, mumbling about Jesse going home to visit his parents, Chloe’s stomach drops and her heart jumps but she lets her in with barely a word.

Sometimes she hates the way Beca makes her feel. Sometimes she hates that she makes her feel something no one else can.

She lets Beca fuck her in the shower, and she tries not to think about the way it makes her feel.

**

They have to do a lot of joint activities with the other acapella groups. There’s something about acapella that feels almost like a cult, that makes you feel as if these people _get_ you, as if they’re the _only ones_ who _truly_ get you. People who are into acapella are really, _really_ into acapella.

Acapella people love to spend time with other acapella people.

They go to joint parties, they go to mixers, they arrange karaoke nights and riff off battles and game nights and trivia nights and excursions to pubs and group rehearsals and friendly competitions amongst themselves.

Chloe hates every single one.

She used to love these kinds of things. She used to love the tight-knit acapella family on Barden’s campus, used to love spending time with the other musically-inclined and musically-passionate young people she could call peers and colleagues.

But now? Now acapella group nights meant nights spent rubbing elbows with the other groups on campus, primarily among them: The Trebles.

In all fairness, now that Bumper’s left the group, they’re a lot more tolerable to be around. Chloe would almost go so far as to say they’re downright _fun_.

And with Aubrey gone, and with Chloe and Beca’s laxer leadership style, and with Beca _literally_ already dating one of the Trebles, there are no weirdly arcane rules about inter-group fraternization.

The Bellas are the best all-female group on campus, and the Trebles are the best all-male group on campus.

They fraternize, to say the least.

Beca and Jesse are together, Amy dabbles amongst the Trebles here and there, Lily has seemed to form a deep spiritual connection with their beat boxer Donald, Cynthia Rose has started a bi-monthly poker night that mostly consists of her and Ashley and a select few Trebles, and Stacie has seemingly made it her mission in life to work her way through the group (except for Jesse, obviously, and Benji; the kid is too sweet and innocent and even Stacie has her limits, it seems).

Basically Chloe has to put up with the Trebles. A lot.

She isn’t sure if it’s the lasting effects of Aubrey’s influence, or maybe her deep distrust of college-aged men in general, or maybe because of everything with Beca (probably the latter, more than anything), but she _really_ doesn’t like spending time with the Trebles.

They aren’t bad guys. They’re actually pretty good guys.

But Chloe hates spending time with them. She hates their cosponsored gatherings.

But as co-captain, she still has to help organize them.

Tonight is Karaoke Night, and everyone’s been drinking, and Chloe is sitting off in a corner of the Trebles’ rehearsal space, sipping on her drink and trying to look at least _somewhat_ engaged.

She doesn’t want them to think she’s a grump. She’s just… stressed about a paper she has due this week and tired from all of their extra rehearsals and Regionals are fast approaching so she’s been spending a lot of time arranging music and going over choreography with Beca and she’s just… she’s tired. Doesn’t feel very festive.

(It’s not true, of course. But if anyone asks, that’s what she’ll tell them.)

Everyone else, at least, seems to be having a good time. The BU Harmonics have even shown up, and a few stragglers from the High Notes wander in throughout the night.

She’s happy for that, at least. As the oldest member of any group on campus — as the only super-senior, the only one who is almost 23 — she feels like a mother hen a lot of the time. She feels the need to coddle and protect the younger students. She feels the need to act as their sort of guide through the dizzying and often terrifying world of college (and collegiate acapella).

She hopes they all have a good time.

(She also hopes she can leave soon without being noticed.)

A loud cheer goes up from the crowd around the microphone as Jesse — a little tipsy and a little wobbly on his feet — is hoisted onto the stage by his fellow Trebles.

Chloe takes a deep drink from her solo cup and tries not to stare, wincing as the alcohol burns its way down her throat.

“Alright alright!” Jesse laughs, swatting at the whooping boys below him. They holler louder. He clears his throat and taps the microphone. “And back by popular demand…” He throws his arms out as the group of singers cheers loudly.

Chloe rubs her nose and looks down at her hands.

“This one goes out to my amazing girlfriend — love of my life — Beca Mitchell!” He says with an exaggerated wink to where Beca stands, off to the side of the swaying students. “I know how much you love movies!” He teases.

Beca laughs and rolls her eyes as Jesse starts in on a medley of movie songs — from Disney to 80s classics to modern soundtracks.

Chloe looks at Beca and wonders if she can still taste Chloe on her tongue from earlier, from when she had kneeled on the floor of Chloe’s bedroom and buried her face under her skirt.

Chloe wonders, as she watches the way Beca and Jesse make eye contact while he sings, just how Beca can sleep at night.

Chloe hasn’t had a restful night since the year started. At night she feels the worst, the guiltiest, the sickest, the filthiest and vilest, the most like scum. At night she tosses and turns, rolling over and over and over and trying to make sense, in her own head, of _when_ exactly she turned into this person, of when exactly she became the sort of person who participated in an illicit affair.

She can’t sleep at night.

She wonders if Beca can.

(It doesn’t mean she stops what they’re doing, though. She feels guilty and sick but it doesn’t mean she stops.)

(She really just can’t seem to stop.)

**

They don’t talk about Jesse when they’re alone. They _never_ talk about him when they’re alone.

When they’re with the other Bellas — crowded in a group, after rehearsal or before rehearsal or at some party they all go to — it’s a different story.

When they’re in a group, they’re ‘Beca and Chloe the Two Best Friends,’ and Chloe teases her and Beca smiles and they joke and they dish like any two good, platonic female friends should. They don’t hold eye contact more than is common, they don’t touch more than is strictly necessary (Chloe’s a generally touchy person, so a few extra hugs or a misplaced hand on a thigh doesn’t raise anyone’s suspicion), and they don’t talk about the fact that they actually have _a lot_ of reasons to put their hands on each other more than is strictly common.

No one notices.

Chloe thinks it’s probably because they do everything in their power to avoid talking about the fact that they actually have sex quite frequently. They never acknowledge it, even when they’re alone, except if one of them whispers something in the other’s ear while they’re mid-fuck.

It probably helps keep suspicion off of them, Chloe thinks, if even _they_ never make any attempt to address their confusing relationship. If they refuse to think about it, refuse to ever address it, ignore it and pretend like everything’s normal whenever they’re by themselves or around other people… it makes sense that no one else would have picked up on it.

Chloe thinks she should be thankful, probably.

She doesn’t feel thankful.

They talk about almost everything when they’re alone, save for two topics: their affair, and Beca’s boyfriend.

When they’re by themselves, they never talk about him.

Chloe isn’t sure if that makes her feel better or worse.

It’s the elephant in the room, the conversation neither of them will broach. They never even acknowledge that he _exists_ , if they can avoid it.

(One time, when Chloe had Beca stripped naked on her bed, with Beca’s nipple sucked into Chloe’s mouth, he called her. The room had been silent, only the sounds of Beca’s quiet gasps providing any kind of noise, when her phone erupted with the sound of his personalized ringtone. When Beca reached to silence it, Chloe had surged forward and pinned her hands above her head and kissed her furiously, grinding a thigh viciously into Beca’s pussy. She let the phone ring and ring and ring, and refused to let Beca do more than kiss her back and grind her cunt up into Chloe’s thigh.)

(It made her feel evil and naughty and cruel.)

(She liked it, but she refused to think about that.)

They don’t talk about him.

Chloe isn’t sure if that makes her feel better or worse.

She’s honestly not sure anything could make her feel worse than she already does.

**

The first time she sends Beca a dirty picture, it’s sort of supposed to be a joke.

(But maybe not. Chloe can’t even _tell_ anymore.)

The first time she sends Beca a dirty picture, it’s because Beca had cracked some sort of joke in the Bellas group chat (that mostly consisted of an eggplant emoji, the eyes emoji, and a peach).

Chloe lifts her shirt, pulls a face with her tongue sticking out, snaps a picture, and sends it off without even thinking.

She doesn’t bother checking her Snapchat to see if Beca’s replied; she just turns back to her tome of dense Russian literature and tries to concentrate.

Her phone buzzes against her thigh.

When she looks at it, she sees that she’s gotten a text from Beca. A solo text. A text outside of the Bellas group chat.

(It isn’t like she and Beca _don’t_ text one-on-one. Of _course_ they do. But it’s usually about rehearsal, or it’s them sending each other YouTube videos of songs they might want to do, or Beca asking her opinion on one of her mixes, or a funny meme one of them found online, or pictures of Chloe’s dog, or confirmation of dinner plans or scheduling conflicts. It isn’t usually _this_.)

 **Becs (6:43 p.m.)**  
_what, bra on, chlo?  
_ _thought i deserved better?_

It’s a joke. Chloe’s pretty sure it’s a joke.

She’s pretty sure it’s a joke.

She isn’t sure what makes her do it (because she’s _pretty sure Beca’s joking_ ), but she strips her shirt off, unhooks her bra, angles her phone so that her face is out of the frame, and takes another picture.

There’s a dark bruise on her collarbone from three nights ago — from the last time she and Beca fumbled around in the dark. She’s come to realize that Beca has a thing about marking her, has a thing about leaving bruises and scratches on Chloe’s flawless skin, a thing about biting and a thing about hickies.

She cranes her neck so that the bruise catches the light and shows up in sharp relief against her pale skin, and arches her back so that her breasts appear a little more prominent than they might actually technically be.

She takes a deep breath when she hits ‘Send.’

Then she texts Beca.

 **Chloe (6:45 p.m.)  
** _Check again?_

She waits with baited breath for what feels like an eternity (it’s barely a minute).

 **Becs (6:46 p.m.)  
** _fuck._

Her heart is pounding, her palms sweating, and her fingers shake a little as she texts back.

 **Chloe (6:46 p.m.)  
** _Yeah?_

 **Becs (6:46 p.m.)  
** _yeah._

**Chloe (6:47 p.m.)  
** _Do you want more?_

Chloe swallows thickly and tries to still her shaking fingers. Her leg bounces against her bed, her book long forgotten next to her,

Three little dots blink on the screen, indicating that Beca’s typing.

They disappear.

Chloe’s heart clenches as she starts to frantically come up with something, _anything_ to rectify this situation. She has an apology half-typed out when she gets another text.

 **Becs (6:49 p.m.)  
** _i mean i don’t wanna ask_

Chloe swallows.

 **Chloe (6:49 p.m.)**  
_You’re not asking.  
_ _I’m offering._  

 **Becs (6:49 p.m.)  
** _are you sure?_

 **Chloe (6:50 p.m.)  
** _If you want._  

 **Becs (6:51 p.m.)**  
_i mean its one of those things_  
_where i’m not sure whats  
_ _allowed_

**Chloe (6:51 p.m.)  
** _Yes or no, Becs._

She waits with baited breath for two minutes.

 **Becs (6:53 p.m.)  
** _yes._

She exhales a shaky sigh of what might be relief and what might be fear.

 **Chloe (6:54 p.m.)  
** _What do you want?_  

 **Becs (6:56 p.m.)**  
_cmon chlo please dont make  
_ _me ask_

**Becs (6:56 p.m.)**  
_you know i get weird  
_ _about this stuff_

Chloe would roll her eyes if she didn’t have so much nervous energy buzzing through her.

(Chloe tells herself that she doesn’t _do_ nervous, but around Beca, more and more, she’s beginning to think that maybe she does.)

 **Chloe (6:58 p.m.)**  
_You seem perfectly capable  
_ _whenever you fuck me._

It’s the first time either one of them has directly acknowledged, outside of their hookups, that they’re actually having sex on a semi-regular basis.

Chloe knows it’s a gamble, and it could all blow up in her face, and she’s taking a risk addressing it head-on like she is, but _fuck it_ , honestly. Go big or go home.

 **Becs (7:01 p.m.)**  
_thats different.  
_ _im bad at texting._

 **Chloe (7:01 p.m.)  
** _So get good at it._  

 **Becs (7:02 p.m.)**  
_are you seriously teasing  
__me right now_  

 **Chloe (7:02 p.m.)  
** _I seriously am._  

 **Becs (7:03 p.m.)  
** _why?_

Should she tell Beca the truth? Should she play it off as a joke? Make some kind of witty remark or snappish comeback?

She lets her fingers hover over the keys, debating for a good while, trying to figure out what to say.

 **Becs (7:08 p.m.)  
** _why, chloe_

Chloe takes a breath and tells the truth.

 **Chloe (7:09 p.m.)**  
_Because I want you to tell  
_ _me what to do_  

 **Becs (7:09 p.m.)  
** _you like that?_

**Chloe (7:10 p.m.)  
** _I do._  

 **Chloe (7:12 p.m.)  
** _So tell me what to do._  

It opens up a whole new can of worms that Chloe’s not sure she’s ready to deal with.

But after that night, it starts becoming a regular thing.

**

 **Becs (9:04 p.m.)  
** _what are you doing right now?_

**Chloe (9:08 p.m.)**  
_Ugh. Watching a terrible movie  
_ _with Stacie and Jessica._  

 **Becs (9:09 p.m.)**  
_can they see what you’re  
_ _typing?_

**Chloe (9:09 p.m.)**  
_???  
_ _No???_  

 **Becs (9:11 p.m.)**  
_good_  
_because this problem set_  
_is kicking my ass_  
_and ive been thinking about  
_ _fucking you all day_

Chloe’s heart jumps to her throat and she coughs loudly around her drink.

Jessica and Stacie shoot her worried looks.

“You okay, Chloe?” Jessica asks, moving to rub at Chloe’s back as she continues to splutter.

She waves them off with watering eyes. “I’m fine. Tot-totally fine. Just went down the wrong pipe.”

“That’s what she said!” Stacie calls, her eyes still focused on whatever awful horror movie she talked them into watching.

“That doesn’t even make _sense_ , Stacie,” Jessica argues with her, her attention diverted away from Chloe for the time being.

Chloe flushes as she types a quick response.

 **Chloe (9:13 p.m.)  
** _Beca they are RIGHT here._  

 **Becs (9:14 p.m.)**  
_so dont let them see??  
_ _i dont understand the problem_

 **Chloe (9:14 p.m.)**  
_I’m not sexting you while my knee  
_ _is literally touching Jessica’s_  

 **Becs (9:15 p.m.)**  
_why not?  
_ _dont you think its kinda hot?_

She _does_ , but she doesn’t want to admit it so easily.

 **Chloe (9:16 p.m.)  
** _Hot how?_  

Chloe flexes her fingers and glances around the room as furtively as she can, hoping against hope that Stacie and Jessica haven’t noticed anything weird.

 **Becs (9:17 p.m.)**  
_it isnt hot knowing they_  
_might see?_  
_knowing they might  
_ _figure it out?_

**Becs (9:18 p.m.)**  
_having a secret…_  
_getting wet sitting next_  
_to your friends  
_ _when you aren’t supposed to_

Chloe swallows and tries not to whimper, crosses her legs and clenches her thighs together, attempting to give herself any kind of relief she can.

 **Chloe (9:19 p.m.)  
** _Beca I swear to God..._  

 **Becs (9:20 p.m.)  
** _is it working?_

**Chloe (9:20 p.m.)  
** _It’s working._  

From somewhere across campus, Chloe _swears_ she can _feel_ Beca’s self-satisfied smirk.

 **Becs (9:21 p.m.)  
** _are you wearing underwear?_

Chloe bites her lip and clenches her thighs.

 **Chloe (9:21 p.m.)  
** _Why?_   

 **Becs (9:21 p.m.)  
** _answer the question, chlo_

**Chloe (9:22 p.m.)  
**_yes_  

Beca doesn’t text her back for several long minutes.

The anticipation and the worry and the excitement leach into her bones, and she gets impatient. Beca can’t keep her waiting like this. It isn’t _right_.

 **Chloe (9:27 p.m.)  
** _Becs?_  

She tries to pay attention to the TV (or to Stacie and Jessica’s colorful commentary), but she just _can’t_ , because Beca can’t just fucking _tease_ her like that and then not _do_ anything about it.

 **Chloe (9:32 p.m.)  
** _Beca._

**Becs (9:32 p.m.)**  
_go to the bathroom and  
_ _take them off._

Chloe’s eyes widen comically, and she’s _endlessly_ thankful no one is looking at her, endlessly thankful that Jessica and Stacie seem to be engrossed in the movie and in each other.

 **Chloe (9:33 p.m.)  
** _What?_  

She’s not sure if Beca can hear the way she wants to whisper the word, breathless and hardly there, but she thinks that maybe Beca gets it. Beca has this uncanny knack for understanding the underlying message of Chloe’s words, for understanding what she’s getting at even when she doesn’t really want to say it, for reading the subtext.

 **Becs (9:33 p.m.)**  
_go to the bathroom  
_ _and take your underwear off._

**Chloe (9:34 p.m.)  
** _I’m wearing a dress._  

 **Becs (9:34 p.m.)  
** _so?_

Chloe whimpers, but when Stacie shoots her a look she passes it off as a cough. (She hopes she does, at least.)

 **Chloe (9:34 p.m.)  
** _Beca…_  

 **Becs (9:34 p.m.)  
** _do it._

Chloe sits still for about 30 seconds, bouncing her leg and trying to decide what to do. She shuts her phone and grips it tightly in her fist.

Stacie looks over at her. “Are you good, Chlo? You’ve been acting kinda weird tonight.”

Chloe hopes her face isn’t flushed, hopes that it isn’t obvious that she’s _incredibly_ turned on. “I’m fine, yeah. Just really have to pee and I don’t want to miss any of the movie.”

“Do you want us to pause it?” Jessica asks, shifting and sitting up under her blanket.

Chloe shakes her head vigorously. “No. No no no it’s good, I’m good. I’ll just bite the bullet.” She laughs and tries to make a joke, “This isn’t very good, anyways.”

Jessica laughs and Stacie shouts, affronted, “Hey!”

“She’s right, Stace. It kind of sucks.”

“Well you both _agreed to watch it,_ so you know what I don’t wanna hear it.”

Chloe forces a laugh. “I’ll be back. Try not to kill each other.”

She stands and hurries from the room and hopes that her friends just assume she’s got an over-excited bladder that’s ready to burst.

She gets into the bathroom and closes the door in such a rush that she kind of slams it, and she cringes at the sound.

The lights in Stacie’s bathroom are bright, fluorescent, and when she looks at herself in the mirror she looks pale and washed out.

She takes a breath, closes her eyes, and reaches under her dress.

Her underwear is already wet. Not soaked, not ruined, but she can definitely feel her excitement through the fabric.

Stacie’s bathroom is cold, and when the air hits her exposed sex, Chloe shudders.

Fuck. She hasn’t even touched herself and she can already feel her own arousal against her thighs.

She takes a breath and shoots Beca a text.

 **Chloe (9:39 p.m.)  
** _okay I did it._  

 **Becs (9:39 p.m.)  
** _need proof._

Chloe bites her lip and clenches her fist around the sink she suddenly feels the need to grasp for support.

When she types, she types with one hand, her fingers shaking.

It takes her three tries just to type four letters.

 **Chloe (9:40 p.m.)  
** _becs…_  

 **Becs (9:40 p.m.)  
** _proof, chloe._

She flushes as she takes a picture of her panties, balled up in her fist. She sends the picture to Beca, hoping she’s done enough.

 **Becs (9:40 p.m.)**  
_now lift your skirt and  
__let me see_  

“Fuck,” Chloe mumbles under her breath. She’s already so _embarrassingly_ wet that her upper thighs are glistening, and she’s _sure_ Beca will be able to tell.

She does what she’s told. She fucking _loves_ getting bossed around, she loves when Beca gets dominant and demanding.

(She’s never really said it, at least not face-to-face, but she’s pretty sure Beca understands at this point. They’ve had enough sex where they both know what the other likes.)

She thinks maybe she should be embarrassed about doing this, about taking pictures of her naked body in the bathroom of her friend’s apartment while people she knows sit less than 20 feet from her.

But she doesn’t get embarrassed very easily.

She isn’t embarrassed. She’s fucking _turned on_.

She takes the picture.

 **Becs (9:41 p.m.)  
** _you’re wet._

It isn’t a question, but Chloe answers it like it’s one anyways.

 **Chloe (9:41 p.m.)  
** _I am._  

 **Becs (9:41 p.m.)  
**_good_. 

Chloe wonders how long is too long to stay in the bathroom, how long is too long to stay away from the movie. How long is too long before Stacie and Jessica start to notice that she isn’t there.

She bites her lip and sends another text.

 **Chloe (9:42 p.m.)  
** _what do I do now_  

 **Becs (9:42 p.m.)  
** _fuck yourself for two minutes_

Chloe lets out a strangled gasp.

 **Chloe (9:42 p.m.)  
** _Beca_

 **Becs (9:42 p.m.)  
** _do it._

**Becs (9:42 p.m.)**  
_send me a picture of your  
_ _fingers when you’re done._

**Becs (9:42 p.m.)**  
_then go back outside,_  
_sit on the couch with_  
_Stacie and Jessica and  
_ _finish the movie._

Chloe feels herself clench around nothing.

 **Becs (9:43 p.m.)  
** _and whatever you do, don’t cum._

**Chloe (9:43 p.m.)  
** _fuck Beca_

 **Becs (9:43 p.m.)  
** _be a good girl_

Chloe whimpers at the words on the screen.

(Apparently she has a bit of a praise kink.)

She slips two fingers inside herself. ( _Fuck_ , she’s so wet, there’s absolutely _no_ resistance. She slides inside _so_ easily.) She groans.

 **Becs (9:43 p.m.)  
** _are you doing it?_

**Chloe (9:44 p.m.)  
** _yes_

 **Becs (9:44 p.m.)  
** _good._

**Becs (9:44 p.m.)**  
_when the movie is done,_  
_come to my apartment.  
_ _ill give you a reward._

**Chloe (9:45 p.m.)  
** _what reward?_

 **Becs (9:45 p.m.)**  
_ill fuck you from behind  
_ _bent over my kitchen table._

**Becs (9:45 p.m.)**  
_I know you like when its_  
_kind of public_  
_when anyone could just_  
_walk in and see you  
_ _bent over for me_

Chloe clenches around her fingers and feels like dying, just a little bit.

 **Chloe (9:46 p.m.)  
** _beca I swear to god_

 **Becs (9:46 p.m.)  
** _two minutes are up._

Chloe groans and gasps when she reluctantly removes her fingers from her aching cunt.

 **Becs (9:46 p.m.)  
** _picture, chlo._

She whimpers as she takes a picture of her fingers, glistening wet under the fluorescent lighting of Stacie’s bathroom.

 **Becs (9:47 p.m.)**  
_proud of you._  
_now go back out there  
_ _until the movie is over._

**Chloe (9:47 p.m.)  
** _Beca._

 **Becs (9:47 p.m.)  
** _Chloe._

**Chloe (9:47 p.m.)  
** _please_

 **Becs (9:48 p.m.)**  
_you can wait an hour  
_ _cant you?_

**Chloe (9:48 p.m.)  
** _No_

 **Becs (9:48 p.m.)  
** _guess youll have to_

Chloe scrunches her eyes closed and leans her head against the cool mirror.

Her phone buzzes.

 **Becs (9:49 p.m.)  
** _now go_

Chloe’s knees are weak and her breath is ragged as she finally emerges from the bathroom, underwear balled in her pocket.

The living room is dark. The flickering television is the only thing that lights the space.

Chloe hopes it’s dark enough to stop her friends from seeing how flushed she is, to stop them from seeing that her fingers are still sticky with her own arousal.

“You were gone a long time,” Stacie says when she returns, arching an eyebrow as she watches her carefully.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. My mom called.”

Jessica clears her throat. “Your mom called you at ten at night?”

Chloe keeps her eyes fixed on the TV, refusing to make eye contact with either of them. “My mom parties.”

“Oh well _excuse_ me,” Jessica laughs at her.

Stacie and Jessica exchange a look and Stacie smirks and Chloe’s pretty sure they don’t believe her. She’s pretty sure they assume she was sending nudes from the bathroom.

She’ll let them believe what they want. If she tries to fight them (lie to them) they’ll make a big deal out of it and they’ll tease her and she would be _lying anyway_ , so it doesn’t matter. They can believe what they like.

They don’t confront her about it.

She breathes through her nose for the rest of the movie and crosses her legs tightly and hopes that she doesn’t leave a wet patch underneath her on the couch.

The movie can’t end fast enough.

When the credits finally roll, she’s out of the apartment so fast she thinks she might _literally_ have kicked up dust (like a cartoon animal mid-chase).

She’s sure Stacie and Jessica laugh at her expense after she’s gone, but she well and truly couldn’t bring herself to give a shit if she tried.

**

They win Nationals. Again.

This year, all of the Bellas decide to stay an extra night in the city to celebrate.

Which means that the Trebles go back a day early without them. Which means Jesse goes back a day early without Beca.

Which means Chloe and Beca fuck for about four straight hours, high off of victory and New York City and freedom.

It means they leave the celebration early, sneaking out a back door to aggressively make out against the brick wall of whatever bar they’ve been let into (fake I.D.s and all).

It means Chloe fingers Beca in the back of the cab they take back to their hotel.

It means they fuck on every surface of the hotel room they share.

It means that, for one shining night and for a few brilliant hours, Chloe can forget all about Jesse. She can pretend, if just for the night, that she and Beca are something close to normal.

The morning is a rude awakening.

**

She doesn’t graduate. Again.

Her parents are disappointed and Aubrey sends her multiple Groupons to cheap therapy sessions in response, and Amy offers to _tutor_ her, even, but Chloe ignores all of that.

She tells her parents she’ll pay for her next (and last, she swears) year at Barden.

She tells herself that it’s because Russian Lit is a really difficult class and she doesn’t totally get Dostoevsky. She tells herself it’s because she’s been too caught up in Bellas stuff, in rehearsals, in trying to work part time and still go to class full time.

She tells herself that it’s because she’s stretching herself too thin.

(It definitely isn’t because the thought of leaving — of never seeing Beca again, of never talking to her about their fucked up and confusing relationship — terrifies her to no end.)

(It definitely isn’t about Beca.)

**

She tells herself that it’s going to be different, after she leaves school and heads home for the summer. She tells herself it’s all going to be different.

(She really should stop lying to herself).

That’s when the phone calls start.

The dirty pictures, the sexts… that’s all old news. They’ve been doing it on and off for months now. Like the sex, it doesn’t surprise her or really even throw her anymore.

(She tries not to think about how much she enjoys it.)

The phone calls are new.

They don’t start on purpose.

Beca calls her one night from… some kind of club. She’s spent the past 2 summers in LA, interning at record studios and living in shitty apartments in bad neighborhoods because she’s “chasing her passion” (whatever that means).

Chloe wishes Beca’s dad would at least shell out a little cash so she could afford to stay in an apartment that didn’t reek of Hepatitis. She _knows_ he has enough money; he’d offered to pay for Beca’s LA excursions during her Freshman year, so money can’t be an issue.

(Beca refused the money, apparently. She says it’s all about independence and making her own way and paying her dues. Chloe just really hopes she doesn’t get robbed, one night.)

They haven’t talked about the fact that Chloe is going to be back at Barden again in the fall. Beca knows, but they haven’t talked about it.

She’s in LA, and they keep sporadic contact, but they’re both busy and Chloe doesn’t blame Beca for not being completely responsive, and Chloe doesn’t contact her too often because she doesn’t want to seem over-eager or desperate or needy.

(She hates games, but she seems to be playing a lot of them recently.)

They don’t talk very often, which is fine. It doesn’t bother Chloe (she swears it doesn’t).

They don’t talk very often.

So when Beca calls her at 3 in the morning, Charlotte time, Chloe is really sure someone’s been in a terrible accident. What other reason would there be for her best friend to call her in the middle of the night?

She answers the phone in a panic, voice thick and mind heavy with sleep. “Beca?” She asks, sitting up in bed and flicking on a light. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

It’s only then that she registers just how _loud_ Beca’s end of the line is, just how noisy and confusing it all is.

She shakes her head and blinks rapidly and tries to focus.

 _“Chloe?”_ Beca shouts in her ear, trying to be heard over the electro-synth din around her.

“Beca, I can’t hear you. Are you okay? Is there something wrong?”

Suddenly there’s a loud _bang_ and the ambient noise is a lot softer. _“’M fine,”_ Beca says, and her voice is a little muffled and Chloe can immediately tell she’s been drinking. _“I went outside so I could hear you.”_

Chloe can’t tell if she’s amused or exasperated that she’s been drunk dialed at 3 in the morning.

She rolls her eyes, groans, and flops back down in her bed. “Beca it’s three o’clock. Why are you calling me?”

_“Missed you.”_

Chloe’s heart flutters but she ignores it. “I miss you too, dummy, but it’s really late and you’re drunk.”

_“I’m not drunk, I missed you.”_

Chloe laughs. “You’re definitely drunk, Becs. Why don’t you go back to your apartment and get some sleep?”

_“Can I call you when I’m at my apartment?”_

“Sure, if you want.” She’s banking on the fact that by the time Beca gets back to where she lives, she’ll probably be so drunk and so exhausted that she’ll just pass out on her bed. Chloe will text her and tease her about it in the morning, but no _way_ will she remember to call Chloe later that night.

_“Mmm thanks Chlo. Love you.”_

Chloe exhales heavily. “Love you too,” she whispers, but Beca’s already hung up.

She takes a few deep breaths, closes her eyes, and falls back to sleep.

~~

Her phone rings at 3:27 a.m.

Chloe’s only just managed to slip back into a light sleep, and the ringing of her phone rudely rouses her.

She fumbles for her phone and picks it up, speaking gruffly into the microphone. “Becs?” She huffs.

_“I’m wet.”_

Well, _that_ fucking wakes her up.

Chloe sits up in bed, blinking the bleariness out of her eyes. “Beca?” She asks nervously.

 _“I’m fucking_ drenched _, Chlo,”_ Beca says, her voice thick and her words heavy. Chloe can hear her breathing, deep and uneven through the receiver.

“Beca, it… it’s late.” She’s not sure if she’s trying to dissuade Beca or if she’s trying to buy herself more time, but either way Beca ignores her.

_“Help me out?”_

Chloe takes a shaky breath. “What do you need?” She asks, her voice loud in her dark room.

_“Just wanna listen to you. Wanna hear you say my name.”_

“Beca…” Chloe whimpers, trailing off.

 _“Mmm,”_ Beca moans into the phone. _“Yeah like that.”_

“What are you… what are you doing right now?”

_“Fucking myself. Playing with my clit. Pretending it’s you.”_

She’s not sure how much of this Beca is going to remember in the morning. She’s not sure if this is about to become a regular thing, with them, or if it’s just a one-time deal.

She figures, if this is her only chance, she should take advantage of it.

She kicks off her pajama shorts, shoves her hand into her underwear, and sinks back into her pillows.

“Do you want me to talk to you?” She asks, voice gaining confidence now that she’s providing herself some much needed relief.

_“Please.”_

**

The phone calls continue for the rest of the summer, on top of the sexting and exchanging dirty pictures. (And, whenever Chloe feels she has enough time, a video or two. Beca really likes those.)

They don’t talk about it.

**


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s like she has two different relationships with Beca._
> 
> _It’s like, as soon as they’re alone, as soon as the door shuts, they become entirely different people. They become whatever the other one needs to release tension, to break up a frustrating day, to deal with fucked up feelings and sexual desires._
> 
> _There are two Becas, and there are two Chloes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda just got a tumblr. So follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

They have their own house this year, all of the Bellas. Almost like their own little sorority. But with less philanthropy, and more singing.

It makes sense that they have their own space. Chloe isn’t surprised.

They’re a little bit like campus celebrities. They’ve been on TV, they’ve done daytime talk shows, they’ve toured other schools performing set lists, done radio interviews. News outlets write stories about them, and they’ve got a pretty substantial Instagram following. They get recognized in dining halls and they get invited to every campus party and they constantly have excited Freshmen running up to talk to them in between classes.

Having nationally-ranked acapella champions on your campus is, apparently, kind of an applicant draw.

Apparently a lot of people _really_ like acapella, because the number of students who try out to be part of the Bellas quadruples when they host group tryouts in the fall. They have to do a full three days’ worth of auditions just to keep up with the demand.

Barden University and the powers that be are unsurprisingly grateful and overly-accommodating.

So after their second national title in as many years, they’re able to lobby the school for their own living space.

 _Whatever you ladies need,_ the smarmy Director of Residential Life had written back when they submitted their petition.

Chloe takes him at his word. (Maybe she takes advantage of it, a little bit. Maybe they all do. No crime in that, really. If the school’s offering, why should she turn them down?)

So they have their own house, this year.

It makes things for Beca and Chloe a lot more convenient.

**

The first time Beca and Chloe spend the night together, it’s sort of an accident.

They’ve slept in the same bed before. Of course they have. They’ve been having sleepovers for going on two years, but it’s not the same thing. Having a sleepover with all the other Bellas — packed into their relatively-small living room or into one of the girl’s dorm rooms or Chloe’s old apartment — isn’t the same as Beca _spending the night_ with Chloe.

And the crazy thing is, they never even _mean_ for it to happen. At least not at first.

The first time it happens, it’s an accident.

Chloe has her own room in the Bellas house. Most of the other girls share — Beca and Amy, Jessica and Ashley, Lily and Flo — but Chloe has her own room. No one argued with her when she asked for one. They all feel bad that she’s now been a senior for three years running, and they’re determined to help her graduate by any means necessary. Having her own bedroom and her own space to study is the least they can do.

At least, that’s what they tell her.

Chloe goes along with it. Easier _that_ than explaining that one of the biggest reasons she wants a single is so that she and Beca don’t have to work around unreliable roommate schedules.

But she can hardly admit that to _herself_ , much less to anyone else.

(They never talk about it. Chloe’s pretty sure Beca understands, she’s pretty sure Beca is just as happy she got her own room as Chloe is, but they never talk about it.)

She thinks maybe she should argue with the Bellas, thinks that maybe she should demand they stop pitying her, demand that they treat her fairly. After all, it’s her own damn fault she hasn’t been able to graduate. The rest of them seem to pass their classes easily enough. It’s jut her. (She’s the only one who can’t seem to stomach the thought of moving on.)

She doesn’t deserve their pity; doesn’t really want it, either.

But arguing with them would mean confrontation. And Chloe’s never really been great at confrontation (see: Aubrey steamrolling every one of her opinions as co-captain of the Bellas; see: her current situation with Beca).

Letting them pity her is easier than fighting with them; it’s easier than answering any of their questions.

She can deal with pity.

After all, she’s only here for another year.

And she gets a single out of it, so… who’s going to argue with that?

The first time they spend the night together, it’s an accident.

It’s well past three in the morning, and they’ve had a late and exhausting night watching the BU Harmonics at their winter showcase. (And then, of course, going to the after-party. If you’re in an acapella group on Barden’s campus you can’t just _not_ go to the acapella after-parties.)

And Chloe knows, she _knows_ that it’s a bad idea. It’s late, she’s tired, she has to wake up early the next morning to do all of the work she put off doing today… she _should_ insist that Beca not come up to her room once they finally do manage to make it back to the Bellas house. She should insist that Beca leave her at the stairs, that they part ways at her bedroom door, that they both just turn in for the night.

But they walk in by themselves, just the two of them — the other girls either already in bed or still out gallivanting with the other groups.

They walk in by themselves, and since it’s just the two of them, Chloe slips her fingers between Beca’s in the quiet of the dark kitchen, tilts her head invitingly, and when Beca smiles at her, Chloe leads her up to her bedroom.

She can’t seem to stop, can’t seem to say no, can’t seem to refuse any opportunity to do _this_ with Beca whenever the situation presents itself.

She really just can’t seem to stop having sex with her.

~~

Chloe doesn’t mean to fall asleep with Beca still in her bed — and she’s _pretty_ sure Beca doesn’t mean to fall asleep in her bed, either — but she wakes up at just after 9 in the morning and sure enough, Beca is laid out next to her.

She blinks herself awake, half-convinced she’s still dreaming.

But she isn’t. Beca is burrowed into Chloe’s comforter, hair messy against Chloe’s pillow, with only her head poking out from underneath a mountain of blankets.

She’s facing away from Chloe, so Chloe gets a good look at her bare back and nothing else.

She’s frozen where she lies, too afraid to move or breathe or shift, lest she break the silent spell of early morning possibility. Lest she wake Beca.

She doesn’t have to wait long, because the alarm on Beca’s phone blares at exactly 9:30 a.m., shattering the precarious silence as Beca groans and rolls over.

Chloe immediately shuts her eyes and stirs slowly, pretending that the alarm has only just awoken her, too.

She blinks her eyes open and stretches, forcing a yawn.

She can tell the exact moment Beca realizes where she is, because she stops moving so quickly that it looks like she seizes.

Chloe smiles, as inoffensively and innocuously as possible. (She’s terrified that Beca will run away.)

“So, you crashed here?” She asks, voice purposefully light and teasing.

Beca swallows, body still tense, eyes still darting about Chloe’s face. “It was later than I thought, I guess,” she says quietly, voice thick with sleep and rough from a night of drinking and partying.

Chloe smirks and it almost feels real. “Yeah, well we both know you’re one to pass out right after you’ve gotten yours.”

Beca laughs. “Oh fuck you, I’ve _never_ passed out.”

“Before last night, you mean?”

It works. By some miracle, it works. Chloe teases her and Beca rolls her eyes and the tension is immediately lightened and it’s not the same thing as talking about it or addressing their problems but Chloe figures it’s about as good as she’s going to get.

Beca rolls her eyes and slips from the bed and throws on a pair of Chloe’s sweats and one of Chloe’s shirts without even batting an eye, and Chloe’s heart clenches in her chest and her stomach drops out because it almost feels _real_.

“You gonna make me breakfast?” Beca calls over her shoulder as she looks in the mirror, trying to tame her hair.

Chloe laughs and rolls onto her back, enjoying the way the sheets feel cool against her bare skin. “I think I was the one who had my personal space invaded last night. Shouldn’t _you_ be cooking for _me_?”

Beca make a low noise in the back of her throat. “And let you be a bad hostess? What _would_ your mother say, Chloe Beale?” She pulls a baggy sweatshirt on over her naked chest. When her head pops out the top, Chloe can see that she’s grinning. “Where’s all that Southern hospitality?”

“Oh like I need to be hospitable to _you_.”

“Well I _am_ a guest.”

“You live here, too.”

Beca smiles, and Chloe smiles back, and _fuck_ it almost feels real.

~~

They almost don’t get away with it. Chloe should have figured they wouldn’t. They live in a house with ten women who _really_ don’t know how to keep to themselves. She should have been more careful.

They’re at breakfast when it happens.

(Chloe did, _technically_ , make Beca breakfast. What she really did was make a ton of scrambled eggs for a couple of the girls who had managed to shake their hangovers early enough, and if Beca _also_ ate some of the eggs it didn’t mean anything special. She wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it. If Beca smirks at her from over her mug of coffee, Chloe can ignore that, too.)

It’s just her, Stacie, Beca, Amy, and Jessica awake this early. Most everyone else is still asleep. Amy’s sitting across from Beca at their large dining room table, with Stacie on her left and Jessica on Beca’s right. Chloe sits at the head, a few seats left empty between her and the other girls, the morning paper spread open in front of her. She might only like reading the comics, but she the feeling of a newspaper in her hand is comforting and makes her think of a more-romantic Charles Dickens fantasy world, so she continues the tradition of it, even with the other girls’ teasing.

“And where were _you_ last night?” Amy asks Beca during a lull in their conversation, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Boyfriend keep you up late?”

Chloe determinedly keeps her head down as she stirs her tea, trying not to make any movements.

“No, I crashed with Chloe.”

Chloe almost chokes, eyes wide and watering as she coughs around the hot drink that is all of a sudden so gracelessly caught in her throat.

Stacie laughs as she passes her on the way to the kitchen and slaps her on the back repeatedly, hurting her about as much as helping her. “You good, Chlo?”

She can’t form words yet, too busy spluttering around hot tea, so she just nods, her cheeks fire-red with a blush that she tries to tamp down, but she knows she’s attracting attention.

She doesn’t look at Beca.

“What, sleepover without the rest of us?” Amy asks with a little pout.

Beca shrugs. “I have a sleepover with you almost every night. You snore. I wanted a break.”

It sounds so very, _very_ close to being real.

Chloe thinks the others buy it. She hopes they do, at least.

She doesn’t know _what_ possessed Beca to tell them anything even close to the truth — Amy _literally_ fed the ‘I was with Jesse’ excuse to her on a silver platter — but she did.

They don’t look at each other for the rest of breakfast.

(Or at least, Chloe doesn’t look at her. Makes a pointed effort to keep her eyes everywhere except Beca’s face. She can’t be sure if Beca looks at her or not, but she assumes not.)

Chloe’s not sure if it’s the almost getting caught thing, or an anxious reaction from Beca’s spontaneous bout of honesty, or Chloe’s own coughing, choking response, but for a few long months after that morning Beca is exceedingly careful not to spend the night — even as part of Bella’s group sleepovers.

It doesn’t happen again for a while.

Chloe tries to pretend that she doesn’t notice.

**

Beca’s taken to walking into Chloe’s bedroom unannounced, with no warning and no perfunctory knock to hint at her impending arrival. She’ll push the door open with her headphones hung around her neck, already complaining about homework that’s piling up for the week, toss herself on Chloe’s bed and throw her arms over her head. Sometimes she’ll walk in at night and fling Chloe a jacket and say, “Dinner? Amy’s hungry,” and Chloe will stand and follow her obediently out the door. Other times she’s more direct. She’ll slip into Chloe’s room and close the door behind her, barely making a sound, and Chloe doesn’t even have time to ask a question before Beca’s straddling her on the bed, pushing her homework carelessly to the side as she shoves her down and kisses her so hard Chloe has trouble breathing.

The point is, she really _should_ know better at this point, because she’s spent enough time with Beca to know that this is a particularly annoying habit Beca’s picked up, and she should _really_ learn to lock her door when she doesn’t want to be disturbed, and yet…

It really isn’t her fault. Who just barges into someone else’s bedroom without knocking? It’s two in the afternoon, the house is practically empty because almost everyone is in class, Chloe’s got her room to herself, no afternoon classes, and a perfectly functioning vibrator, and, well…

It really isn’t Chloe’s fault.

She’s got one headphone in and she’s a little… distracted. Which is why she doesn’t hear footsteps approaching, why she doesn’t notice anything until Beca’s already got the door halfway open, until she hears Beca say, “God, I’m starving. Do you want to—?” before she realizes what’s happening.

She yelps, snaps her legs shut and rips her earbud away in rapid succession.

“Beca!” She exclaims, breathless, frozen where she sits propped on her bed, heart pounding in her chest and unsure of what to do or say.

Beca is still in the doorway, hand clenched tightly around the edge of the door. She blinks a few times like she can’t quite see properly. “What are you doing?” She asks.

“I’m—” Chloe huffs— “Beca, what does it _look_ like I’m doing?”

Beca is fucking _eyeing_ her without a goddamn care in the world, like Chloe’s face isn’t flushed, like she isn’t clutching her comforter around her waist like her fucking life depends on it. Beca is looking at her like she’s the most goddamn cool and collected person on the goddamn planet.

Chloe’s inner walls clench, because fuck her if detached, calmly-cool Beca isn’t hot as hell.

“Vibrator?” Beca asks with a level tone.

Chloe flushes impossibly darker. “Christ, Becs, _yes_. You happy?”

Beca’s eyes continue the path over her body and bed and Chloe struggles against the urge to wriggle under her gaze. She closes the door slowly behind her, and Chloe hears the lock click with finality.

She swallows thickly.

Beca tilts her head. “What are you looking at?” She asks, tilting her chin in acknowledgement.

Chloe swallows again (her mouth is so dry) and locks her phone. She clenches it tightly in her hand. “Nothing,” she says quickly, flustered and a little out of it. “Porn,” she finally supplies, because she’s pretty sure ‘nothing’ isn’t going to cut it.

Apparently ‘porn’ won’t cut it either.

Beca arches an eyebrow, and Chloe can immediately tell she doesn’t believe her (she really _is_ kind of a terrible liar). “You are?” Beca asks, chin raised and voice just hinting at haughty amusement.

“ _Yes_ ,” Chloe insists, and it isn’t lost on her that she still has a hand between her legs, clutching at the inside of her thigh. It isn’t lost on her that the vibrator pulsing away inside of her is sending rippling aftershocks through her body that Chloe is _actively_ fighting. Her thighs tremble and she tries to breathe, and she doesn’t really understand why she hasn’t _stopped_ because it would be so easy to stop and she should really fucking _stop_ already. Beca looks at her for a few tense, long moments and Chloe colors and looks down and tells the truth. “No,” she says.

“So what are you looking at?”

“I’m… I’m rereading our text conversation.”

Beca _smirks_ and fuck her if it doesn’t _really_ do something for her. “Which one?”

“Beca, I was a _little_ busy here, so if you don’t—”

“I didn’t tell you to stop.”

Chloe’s heart clenches in her chest and she loses all ability to draw breath. “What?”

Beca looks at her carefully, eyes skimming down Chloe’s body to rest on the space between Chloe’s legs. (She’s still got her sheets clasped around her waist so Beca can’t see more than vague shapes but judging by the way Chloe’s fingers twitch towards the toy still inside of her, the inaccuracy of Beca’s gaze doesn’t bother her.)

Chloe’s inner muscles spasm and tighten around the toy inside her and she bites her lip and tries not to whimper out loud and embarrass herself further.

“I didn’t tell you to stop,” Beca repeats, and Chloe has to bite down on her tongue to stop from making a truly _humiliating_ noise.

“You want…”

Beca takes a step forward, dropping her backpack to the ground unceremoniously. It _thunks_ and Chloe blinks and she worries her covers between the fingers of her left hand and swallows thickly.

“Keep going,” Beca says quietly, “and tell me what you’re looking at on your phone.”

“Beca…” She says, but she isn’t sure if she’s asking or begging or just saying Beca’s name because she’s just grabbed the base of the vibrator and is starting to slowly work it between her legs again.

“What were you looking at on your phone?”

“It was from the other night, when we…” Chloe trails off with a gasp, tilts her head back as pleasure cuts through her.

“When we what?”

Chloe groans.

Beca takes another step forwards. “Answer the question, and maybe I’ll help you out.”

Chloe has just enough presence of mind, even as her hips rock up off of the mattress below her, to say, “Who said I needed your help?”

Beca quirks an eyebrow, a half-smirk pulling at the corner of her lips. “What, you don’t want the real thing?”

“I’m al-allowed to masturbate,” her voice catches in her throat and she hates the way it makes her seem so weak.

“You could have done it with me here. Or, if you wanted me telling you what to do so much, you could have called me.”

“Beca…”

“So, do you like it more than me?”

“My vibrator?” Beca nods. “Well it do-does vibrate.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Maybe. Your fingers can’t.”

“Stop.”

Chloe freezes immediately. Or at least she tries to. She stops moving her hand but her hips jerk of their own volition, desperate and aching for release.

Beca’s nostrils flare. “I said _stop_ , Chloe.”

“I can’t… Beca for fuck’s sake, please you have to—”

“You wanted me to tell you what to do. I’m telling you what to do. I told you to stop, now stop.”

“Can I at least—?”

“Leave it in.”

“Beca.”

“Keep saying my name. I like when you say my name.”

(There’s too much in there for Chloe to unpack, so she doesn’t even try.)

**

She almost asks Beca what she’s doing for Christmas. Almost asks if she has plans. Almost asks her to come home to Charlotte with her and spend the holiday with Chloe and her family (as her friend, of course; only as her best friend).

She almost asks her.

But she doesn’t.

She asks Aubrey, instead. She misses her and thinks that they should spend some much-needed time together. It’s been too long, really, and Aubrey has a complicated relationship with her parents — and Chloe’s parents are lovely and supportive and amazingly sweet — and Aubrey jumps at the opportunity. She squeals into the phone when Chloe asks her, and starts rambling on and on about what the two of them are going to get up to during the holiday. “It’ll be just like old times, Chloe! I haven’t seen my best friend in a while,” she says while Chloe tries her best to feel excited.

The truth is, she’s conflicted. She feels a little weird about bringing Aubrey home with her to spend the holiday with her like everything is normal and nothing has changed in the past two years — like Chloe’s life isn’t entirely unrecognizable as opposed to two years ago, when she and Aubrey were taking on Barden University together.

Because Aubrey really isn’t her best friend anymore; Beca is. She doesn’t call Aubrey when she’s in a crisis, doesn’t seek Aubrey out when she wants to vent about work or professors, doesn’t text Aubrey every day or tell her when she’s working through relationship problems (in all fairness, she doesn’t talk about that last part with Beca, either).

Aubrey isn’t really her best friend, at this point. And boy does Chloe feel guilty when she has _that_ particular thought.

Aubrey isn’t really her best friend. Beca is.

But also, at the same complicated time, she isn’t.

It’s like she has two different relationships with Beca. There’s the relationship where they’re co-leaders of the Bellas, where they talk about everything together, where they share makeup tips and exchange ridiculous stories, where they go out to dinner and host joint sing-offs with rival groups and tour around the country with their sisters.

And then there’s the relationship they share behind closed doors. Almost without communication. Mostly naked, mostly without speaking, mostly involving some sort of pleasurable pain or exchanging of dominance.

Chloe on her knees in front of Beca, Beca tied to Chloe’s bed, dirty pictures and filthy phone calls, fucking in public restrooms and in alleys behind loud clubs.

It’s like, as soon as they’re alone, as soon as the door shuts, they become entirely different people. They become whatever the other one needs to release tension, to break up a frustrating day, to deal with fucked up feelings and sexual desires.

There are two Becas, and there are two Chloes.

It’s driving Chloe fucking insane.

She wonders how she’ll ever get a handle on it.

~~

She brings Aubrey home for Christmas instead of Beca. She tries to pretend she doesn’t spend the entire flight from Georgia to North Carolina thinking about that fact.

Beca shoots the Bella’s groupchat a text on Christmas morning.

 **Becs (9:56 a.m.)**  
_merry christmas acabitches!!!_  
_(and happy holidays to all you_  
_non-christian acabitches too!)_

It’s very cheery. Overly cheery, maybe. More exclamation points than Beca’s usually up for sending.

Chloe lets her finger hover over Beca’s picture, over the little phone icon next to her name, and she debates calling.

In the end, before she can really make a decision, Aubrey pulls her away and drags her and Chloe’s parents to a movie that she insists on taking them to.

Chloe tries to pretend that it makes her forget.

**

Sometimes, Beca comes to her immediately after she’s been with Jesse.

That’s the first hint she gets that Beca might be pretty physically and/or sexually dissatisfied in her relationship. (It really should have been the fact that Beca continues to sleep with Chloe — on an increasingly frequent incremental basis, for going on three years now — when she _should_ be in a committed, monogamous relationship. That should have been the first hint.)

(Apparently Chloe is a little dense.)

Sometimes, Beca comes to her immediately after she’s been with Jesse.

It takes Chloe a couple times to notice the pattern, but pretty soon she gets a handle on it.

It always happens at night. If Beca’s seeking Chloe out because she’s just spent time with Jesse, it’s going to be at night. Always after 9 p.m., but always before midnight. Before or after that, if Beca shows up outside Chloe’s door, it’s for entirely different reasons. But if it’s between 9 and 12, if Beca kisses Chloe too roughly and sheds her clothes too quickly, if by the time Chloe touches her Beca is already dripping wet and clenching around her fingers, if Beca is missing some important article of clothing (like her bra or her underwear), if she desperately grinds against Chloe’s hand or fingers or thigh or mouth, if she’s flustered and on edge and doesn’t talk between the door and Chloe’s bed… if all of those things are happening simultaneously, then Chloe knows that Beca’s just been with Jesse.

Chloe knows just a little bit too much about their sex life.

Not really on purpose; she’s pretty sure Beca doesn’t have any desire to share the intimate details of her sexual (mis)adventures with her boyfriend.

But either way, Chloe knows too much about their sex life.

She knows their sex is vanilla. She knows Jesse doesn’t do anything about Beca’s proclivity for holding people down while she fucks them, because she always fucks Chloe the hardest after they’ve been together. She can tell that Jesse is one of those guys who is determined to always ask his girlfriend what she wants in a quiet voice at every step of the way — to ‘make love’ with her rather than fuck her — because Beca always whispers the dirtiest things in her ear if she’s just come from his place.

Jesse’s whole nice-guy thing? That’s all well and good, some of the time.

But that can’t be the _only_ way you have sex with someone. You’d go fucking nuts.

(She’s not really sure she can blame Beca for seeking her out after she figures this out about them. She might do the same, were she in her position.)

Sometimes Beca won’t let her go down on her. Chloe doesn’t notice it at first — it’s not like they do it all the time or every time they fuck, or anything like that. They have sex in different ways so it takes her more than a few months to notice.

Because Beca never really _stops_ her from doing anything. If she’s moving down Beca’s body, tonguing her and nipping at her, Beca doesn’t ever _stop_ her. She doesn’t stop her. As far as Chloe can tell, Chloe’s mouth on her sex is one of Beca’s favorite things. (Top 4, easily.)

But every once in a while, if she’s moving down Beca’s body during those critical hours between 9 and 12 when Beca is worked up and aggressive and wanting, Beca will stop her.

She’ll tug on Chloe’s shoulders (gently, almost too gently), and whisper, “Not tonight, Chloe.” And at first Chloe doesn’t think anything of it.

It takes her more than a few months to notice the pattern.

When she does notice, she wonders about it. A lot. Like… like she can’t really _stop_ thinking about it. She knows that it isn’t Beca’s period making her act like this (she memorized her cycle within the first six months of meeting her because Aubrey basically demanded all of the medical records for every Bellas member and Chloe is nothing if not annoyingly particular with the things she remembers) but she just can’t really figure out _what_ it is.

She never understands, not really.

(Maybe it’s the intimacy of the gesture? Maybe she’s just sore from sex with him? Maybe Jesse went down on her earlier in the night, and Beca is trying to be chivalrous by not having her boyfriend and illicit sex partner both put their mouths on the same part of her body in the same night? She never really understands.)

She almost wants to ask. She almost asks.

But the question feels equally weighty and inappropriate, so she doesn’t say anything and pretends she doesn’t notice anything unusual and doesn’t let Beca in on the fact that she’s figured out her patterns and tries desperately not to think about it.

She doesn’t question it.

**

He doesn’t often frequent the Bellas house. But every month or so they have Bellas Bonding aka Game Night aka Everyone Who Is Over 21 Gets Drunk and Plays Monopoly and Most People Bring Their Boyfriends or Girlfriends or Significant Others If They Have Them.

He doesn’t come every month. But he comes often enough.

Chloe can’t skip. She’s tried. She gets dragged out of her bedroom by Jessica and Ashley or by Stacie and Cynthia Rose who tease her about being a grandma and ignore her muted protests about ‘needing to study for this midterm’, even when no such midterm exists.

She can’t skip. She’s tried.

But God, she wishes she could.

They get drunk. They get too drunk. They always do. Everyone always does. Chloe monitors the situation like a good house-mom, and tries to moderate the alcohol intake for the youngest among them. But they always get a little too drunk.

(Weirdly, these Game Nights are the only times Chloe doesn’t drink when the rest of the house drinks.)

(Come to think of it, she never actually drinks _inside_ the Bellas house. She’s never really sat down to try and think about why that is. She can only assume it’s because drinking in her own house will lead to Bad Thoughts and Unnecessary Feelings so she ignores the fact that she wants to and quietly sips her club soda or her root beer or her Diet Coke or whatever other mixers they have on hand. So she ignores that she wants to drink and continues to be sober and tries not to think about how she’s a little masochistic, for putting herself through this without any alcohol.)

They’re talking about sex. (Fucking Stacie, always bringing up sex…)

Jesse’s face is a little flushed and he’s laughing and open and his arm is around Beca’s shoulders and he’s grinning at Cynthia Rose as she ribs him about his lack of sexual prowess — Chloe keeps pointedly silent and just sips her ginger ale.

“Oh if you’re so good, Swanson, how come we’ve never heard a noise complaint from the Trebles?” Cynthia asks him, hand wrapped tightly around her beer bottle. “Can’t be very good if you aren’t keeping the neighbors up.”

“Oh that’s not true! You know…” Jesse says with a laugh, one hand splayed palm-up on the table in front of him in a display of open kindness. He grins wryly, and the other Bellas in the room are eating it up, clearly drawn to his nerdy charisma and genuine sincerity. “Some girls are loud in bed, some aren’t. Take Beca, for example.”

Chloe’s head whips up. She hadn’t really been paying attention before but she _certainly_ is now.

Beca rolls her eyes and clears her throat and elbows Jesse in the ribs from where she’s tucked under his arm. “Please don’t tell them what I’m like in bed,” she says, but she isn’t exactly _pleading_ , and isn’t exactly _embarrassed_. Her voice is teasing, like she understands that Jesse is probably about to embarrass her in front of her friends but she’s going to be a good sport about it.

“No no, please do,” Amy says with an evil smirk on her face. Cynthia Rose and Stacie immediately join her in begging for more information.

Chloe listens but tries not to watch, keeps her gaze focused on her phone even though her eyes have glossed over. Her heart is pounding in her chest and her palms are sweaty and her stomach is tight, and she isn’t sure if it’s because she’s suddenly having to imagine Beca and Jesse sleeping together or because they’re having this conversation and she can _literally_ still feel the lingering sensation of Beca’s wet arousal on her upper thigh from where she ground herself to orgasm only an hour before.

Beca looks mostly unfazed, only a little miffed as Jesse laughs and continues: “No, no I’m serious! It doesn’t mean you’re necessarily _bad_ in bed.” Benji (sweet kid, trying to pretend like he isn’t listening with rapt attention, like this isn’t vital information to him) worries his lip between his teeth and looks like he doesn’t believe him.

Stacie has an even more suspicious look on her face. “I don’t know, Jess…” She says with a slight frown. “I’ve never known a lot of noise to be a _bad_ thing.”

He rolls his eyes. “It isn’t bad to be loud or bad to be quiet. Some girls just don’t _make_ noise, really. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t doing a fine job.” He turns his head just slightly, mischief high in his cheeks and dancing in his eyes. “I can barely get a _sound_ out of Becs.”

Chloe’s eyes snap up to Beca’s face. (She thinks that maybe Beca glances at her quickly, out of the corner of her eye, but she can’t be sure because her eyes are suddenly wavering and unfocused and she has to blink several times to try and come back to the conversation.)

Amy and Cynthia Rose immediately start whooping and hollering, making fun of Jesse and Beca in equal measures, Amy laughing and poking her roommate in the side while Beca smiles and squirms away in mock-discomfort.

Chloe feels like she can’t breathe.

Because Beca is _loud_ in bed. At least, she is with _her_. She’s constantly talking, whispering dirty things in Chloe’s ear, gasping and begging and pleading when Chloe fingers her, moaning when Chloe eats her out. She’s had to hold a hand over Beca’s mouth on more than one occasion for fear of being overheard, and has even taken to _gagging_ her sometimes when they’re meeting up late at night in the Bellas’ house. (Beca suggested the gag the first time, and as far as Chloe can tell she _loves_ it because it keeps making appearances during their time together.)

(She also _really_ enjoys being tied down, being at Chloe’s mercy, letting her body get worked over, letting herself get teased while she thrashes and tugs and strains at her restraints.)

( _Can’t think about that now_.)

The point is, Beca is not someone Chloe would describe as ‘ _quiet in bed_.’ Sort of the opposite, really. She’s one of the most active talkers Chloe’s ever slept with, and Chloe’s slept with a fair number of people.

She wonders about that, wonders about the fact that Beca doesn’t make noise when she’s with Jesse, wonders _who_ she’s faking it with.

(She hopes it isn’t her, but then again, she can’t be sure.)

**

She half-hopes Jesse will walk in on them, one day.

(Beca was right, all those months ago, when she teased her about liking to be fucked in semi-public, semi-dangerous places. She really _does_ like it, really does get off on the idea of someone walking in on them.)

(She’s not sure if that’s something she had before she started this whole business with Beca, or if it’s just because, subconsciously, she’s desperate for a reprieve of her guilt; desperate for someone else to _finally_ know about them; desperate for someone else to acknowledge their relationship; desperate for Beca to have to acknowledge what they’re doing.)

She half-hopes he’ll come back early — drop by the Bellas house unannounced — from Trebles rehearsal or class or diner, come walking into Beca’s room or come knocking on Chloe’s door and catch them in the act.

But it doesn’t turn her on to think about him discovering their affair; it actually makes her feel desperately, violently ill.

But she still kind of wants him to figure it out. She almost can’t stand the sneaking around, the waiting for the other shoe to drop. She sort of just hopes that he’ll figure out what’s going on just because she can’t _stand_ the fact that _no one_ knows what’s going on.

She feels like she’s stuck. She feels like she’s been stuck for three years, repeating the same classes and the same achievements and making the same mistakes and it all just…

She half-hopes he’ll walk in on them, one day. Like the opening scene to one of those 80s or 90s or early 2000s romances, those ‘man-discovers-himself-after-terrible-marriage-and-cheating-wife’ movies. She can almost see it in her head.

The door opens, Jesse’s lips already forming to shout ‘Honey, I’m home!’ when he catches a glimpse of moving shapes underneath Beca’s covers. The music cuts out, his eyes fall, his hands drop to his side as the (gift, bundle of flowers, cake, coat) he’s brought his wife crashes to the floor. The camera pans up the bed as first Beca’s head appears from under the blankets (hair nicely mussed), and then Chloe’s — a wry, sinister smirk on her face. (If she were the villain in this movie, she’d definitely smirk when they got caught.) The camera holds on his girlfriend’s guilty face for several long seconds as the audience ponders her guilt, and then cut to black. Fade into the next scene.

But this isn’t the movies.

He never walks in on them.

Because Beca is incredibly careful about it all.

Chloe hates it.

**

Beca climbs from the bed, already searching around on the floor for her discarded clothing.

Chloe grumbles as she rolls over, reaching out to put a hand on Beca’s arm, stilling her.

“It’s late, Becs.”

“Yeah,” Beca says, voice low and soft in the quiet room. “Amy’ll be worried.”

“She won’t care,” Chloe says, eyes still closed, fingers drawing lazy patterns on Beca’s bare arm. “Just stay. You live right downstairs, anyway.”

Beca laughs, but there’s something strange about it. If Chloe were less tired, she might have made more of an attempt to understand the off-putting tone when Beca speaks. “Yeah, I live right downstairs. It’s not like I have to trek across campus.”

Chloe mumbles and scoots her body forward, wrapping her arm around Beca’s waist, warm skin against warm skin. “Just go to sleep, Beca.”

Beca doesn’t answer, but she does lower herself back to the bed, slowly (very slowly), until her head is against the pillow and Chloe’s body is curled into hers.

Chloe kisses her on the cheek, wet and messy, and with her eyes closed she can pretend that Beca smiles into the gesture.

“Night, Becs.”

“Goodnight, Chloe.”

After that, Beca starts spending the night more and more.

**

She has Beca pressed up against the closet door. And because it’s late on a Saturday night, and because Chloe is feeling a little daring and because she got an A on her last Psych midterm, she’s taking a few… liberties.

She likes the way Beca’s hips buck off the door and into hers, likes the way Beca’s fingers are threaded tight in her hair, pulling and applying too much pressure as she forces Chloe’s lips to stay attached to her neck.

She pulls again, and Chloe bites down in response, and she _loves_ the way Beca gasps and keens into it.

So she does it again. And again.

“Chloe… careful.” When Chloe doesn’t stop nipping at her neck, Beca puts a hand to her chest and pushes her away. “Marks, Chloe.”

Chloe scoffs and just takes a step forward, putting her body flush with Beca’s again. “My chest is more bruised than not, and you’re complaining to me about a couple red marks?” She hums and kisses Beca, teeth scraping against her bottom lip.

She bits down hard and Beca flinches away from the pain. “Chloe!” She exclaims, pushing her away again. (Her lip is red and it already looks a little swollen and Chloe feels a vindictive sort of pleasure at that.) “I said no marks.”

Chloe takes a step back. “Why do a couple marks _matter_ , Beca?” She asks, the challenge clear in her tone of voice.

Beca crosses her arms over her chest. “Chloe, come on. You know why.”

“Because of your boyfriend?”

Dead silence.

“ _Chloe_.”

“I mean, c’mon Becs. Why don’t you just say it? It’s so your boyfriend doesn’t know you’re fucking your best friend, right?”

Beca stares at her, eyes wide and mouth open. Neither of them moves for several long seconds.

Finally, Beca breaks.

She snaps her mouth shut and shakes her head. “I’m not gonna deal with you when you’re like this,” she says, stalking past Chloe to grab her discarded backpack.

Chloe huffs and spins on her heel. “So you’re just gonna leave? Is that it?”

“Call me when you decide to stop being so ridiculous.”

The door slams shut behind her.

Chloe really thought talking about it would have given her some sort of cathartic release. But she only feels worse.

**

She gets asked out. Which, you know, wouldn’t be that unusual. It _isn’t_ that unusual. Chloe gets asked out all the time. She has a bubbly, inviting personality, a winning smile, and she flirts like it’s nobody’s business (because it really isn’t).

She gets asked out all the time. Guys on the lacrosse team and girls in her Psych class, waiters at restaurants and women at bars. That’s not what makes this so different.

The crazy serendipity of this time, really, is that she gets asked out _in front of Beca_.

Well… in front of all the Bellas, really.

Issa is a nice girl. She _is_. She’s strong and she’s from Georgia, so she has a little twinge of an accent, but she dresses like a girl from Brooklyn. She plays soccer and waves when Chloe passes her on the quad. When she laughs, her head tips back and her teeth gleam white in the sun.

She’s a really, _really_ nice girl. And Chloe likes her a lot.

So when Chloe leaves rehearsal and spots her sitting at one of the picnic tables across the walkway, book open in front of her and a cup of coffee in her left hand, she smiles and calls her name.

The other Bellas are loitering around, talking to each other in small groups.

Issa looks up from her reading and her face lights up, and she immediately begins gathering her things.

It’s then that Chloe feels a familiar warmth by her elbow. She turns and sure enough, Beca is standing next to her, smiling slightly. “Wanna get out of here?” She asks, her eyes bright with an inviting twinkle. Like everything between them is okay. Like they didn’t get into a fight five days ago, like they haven’t been exchanging stony silences since then.

Chloe looks at her like she almost can’t believe Beca’s gall.

“Hey Chloe!”

There’s a strange in-between moment of confusion, then, where Chloe feels her attention split between the two women next to her. She opens her mouth, almost like spluttering for an answer.

“He-hey, Issa,” she says with as genuine a smile as she can manage.

She can feel Beca’s eyes on her. Stacie and Cynthia Rose laugh at something Jessica said, somewhere off to her right.

Issa grins. “Hey, glad I caught you.”

“Oh, you were waiting for me?” Beca’s eyes are still on her, and more of the girls are starting to tilt their heads toward their conversation, interested.

Issa nods. “I was wondering if you wanted to get some dinner.”

“Like… right now? Or—”

“Right now, or any time, really.” Her smile is brilliant and her eyes are warm and the sun is setting just behind the library and Chloe feels a flush heating her skin. Issa leans forward. “Just so we’re clear, I’m asking you out.”

Chloe laughs, almost in spite of herself. Stacie, Cynthia, and Amy all ‘ _Oooooo’_ in the background. “Weirdly I understood that that was happening,” she responds, teasing almost as an impulse.

Issa laughs too. “So is that a yes?”

Chloe wants to say no. It sits deep in her stomach, a coiling answer and a kind of fluttering discomfort that makes her… she wants to say no.

But she _shouldn’t_ want to say no. Issa is beautiful and funny and she’s nice and Chloe thinks that they would probably get along really well. She shouldn’t want to turn her down. It’s just a date, after all.

( _Beca_ , her mind thinks, but she tells it to be quiet.)

She can feel everyone’s eyes on her (Beca’s watching her) and so she makes up her mind.

Her heart is pounding a tattoo against her ribs when she straightens her spine and says, “I can’t right now, but why don’t I give you my number and you can call me later?”

Issa fishes for a pen out of her backpack and Jessica and Ashely whoop behind her and Chloe swears she can hear Beca’s knuckles crack from next to her.

But she doesn’t look at her. Because fuck her, honestly. She has no right to be angry, no right to be mad or jealous. Chloe is perfectly free to date whoever the hell she likes.

She scribbles her number on the piece of paper Issa hands her, and by the time they’ve finished exchanging shy smiles and Chloe’s turned back around to her group, Beca is nowhere to be seen.

It makes anger blossom, hot and boiling, in the bottom of Chloe’s gut.

Fuck her.

~~

Beca finds her in her bedroom, later. Pushes open the door with a loud _bang_ , face impassive and eyes cold.

Chloe looks at her through the mirror hanging above her dresser.

The hold eye contact for a few long moments.

Beca shuts and locks the door behind her.

Chloe sighs and goes back to fiddling with her lipstick in the mirror. She doesn’t watch Beca approach her, but she can see it out of the corner of her eye.

When Beca slides her hands around Chloe’s waist and brings her lips to her neck, nipping softly at the skin below Chloe’s ear, she fidgets and shifts away. “I don’t know, Becs…”

Beca smirks at her in the mirror. “C’mon Chloe. When have you ever said no?”

She wants to say no right then and there, because Beca’s _right_. In almost three years she’s never turned her down.

She wants to do it. She wants to shove Beca away and tell her to go fuck herself, tell her that she isn’t a slave to her impulses, tell her that she’s perfectly capable of turning Beca away, that she doesn’t _need_ her, that she doesn’t even really _want_ her.

She doesn’t, of course.

She can’t.

But _fuck_ does she want to.

When Beca slips her hand down the front of Chloe’s pants it almost feels like defeat, and she clenches her teeth and flexes her jaw and tries to stop angry tears from pooling at the corners of her eyes. Beca fucks her from behind as Chloe watches herself in her own mirror. Her expression is distant, and as she examines her own face in a manner that feels shockingly like detachment, she sees the angry fire simmering just below the surface of her bright eyes.

She gets a call from Issa the next day, but she never calls her back.

**

They win ICCAs.

Again.

Third time in a row.

And Chloe doesn’t graduate.

Again.

Third time in a row.

When she gets the email from her class dean she screams and throws her phone against the wall so hard that it shatters.

Beca tries to call her three times but Chloe refuses to pick up.

They don’t talk about that, either.

**


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Fat Amy showing her vag to the leader of the Free World is not exactly how Chloe envisioned starting her year._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait on this, I know I've been promising an update for well over a month but it's finally here! Only a few more chapters to go.
> 
> If you want to talk/ask questions/yell at me, feel free to follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

Maybe they’re resting too firmly on their laurels. Maybe they’re relying too heavily on past successes. Maybe Chloe isn’t as driven this year as she should be. Maybe Beca is too distracted. Maybe the girls have gotten lazy in their old age, lost their drive because of the lack of competition and the ease of their many victories.

Maybe they’ve just lost their way.

She can’t help but think something like that has to be the case, after their disastrous Kennedy Center performance.

(She stands with Beca, shoulder to shoulder, grinning in her glittery suit jacket as they glide through vocal ups and downs. They’re better dancers than they’ve been in previous years. And yeah, _maybe_ the lights show and the aerial silk work and the streamers and flags are a little overkill, and _maybe_ they don’t need the gymnastics routine or the rifle twirling. But it’s their first performance back since they all took the summer off. They’re gonna be a little rusty. And it isn’t like it’s a _crime_ to experiment with new things, to try out new styles. Sometimes you get bored of doing the same routines again and again. Sometimes you just wanna try something new.)

Maybe they think too much about this performance. Maybe they’re so nervous about meeting the President that they overcompensate.

Still.

Fat Amy showing her vag to the leader of the Free World is _not_ exactly how Chloe envisioned starting her year.

**

They’re in for a world of hurt when they get back on campus. Before she even gets the official summons in the mail, Chloe just _knows_ that they’re all completely screwed.

She wears her nicest dress to the meeting — blue, to bring out her eyes, and fitted in a way that lets the fabric swish around her knees, making her look fun and summery and flirty. (Girl-Next-Door. It’s a look that’s never steered her wrong.)

She paces back and forth in the waiting room and fans herself against the summer heat as she tries desperately to quell the anxiety in her stomach.

(How could she let this happen? How could she let this _happen_? Aubrey is going to straight up _murder_ her for what she’s done to the Bellas, for the situation she’s gotten them into. Because yeah, maybe Beca is the defacto leader of the group, but Chloe is the oldest and she’s been in the Bellas for _seven goddamn years_. She’s responsible for this. She knows she is.)

“Chloe, chill out.” Beca says to her, and her voice isn’t nearly half as comforting as she thinks it is. “It was a mistake, they’re not gonna burn us for witchcraft.”

Somehow, Chloe thinks being burned at the stake might be more preferable to what actually happens.

She thinks nothing will beat the humiliation of the national news circuit picking up the “Muffgate” story. (Chloe always sort on envisioned getting interviewed by late-night television hosts one day. But not like this.)

(Getting ribbed by the likes of Jake Tapper and Jimmy Kimmel was never on her bucket list.)

But getting stripped of their privileges? Not being allowed to hold auditions and recruit new members? Being put on probation? Taken off their victory tour? Not being allowed to compete at ICCAs this year?

Yeah.

That’s all worse.

Humiliation is one thing, but this?

Despite Beca’s assurances that “We’ve won three championships, whatever happens in there is gonna be _fine_ ,” it most assuredly is _not_ “fine.”

Because this is… the Bellas are over. They’re _basically_ over. When this year ends and they all leave, that’s it. They’re done.

Everything Chloe’s worked so hard for, for so many years… it’ll be like it never existed. Like it never even _mattered_. Like she put herself through _all_ of this and it never even—

She feels like throwing up.

~~

Worlds. Worlds is their only shot. The only thing they can do to possibly, somehow, fix all of this.

It’s their only shot.

Chloe grasps at it like a lifeline, because it’s all she has left.

**

It’s a somber affair when they get back to the house. Chloe can’t even _look_ at the rest of the group, because the guilt and the sick feeling of despair that’s been building inside her for the past two hours is just… it’s too much.

She can’t look at them.

So she slinks upstairs to her bedroom, her head down and her eyes full of tears.

She doesn’t want to have to face them.

Beca follows close behind her, trailing at her heel.

(Chloe can’t even think. What can she even _do_?)

She keeps her bedroom door open because she knows Beca is going to follow her in either way. She flexes her fingers and kicks off her heels and rolls her neck to try and get some thought into her head besides _Worlds Worlds Worlds Worlds._

She can feel it nagging at her, like an obsession. The pressure already growing behind her eyes.

She has an obsessive personality. She knows this about herself. She’s prone to stretches of extreme hyperactivity, where she doesn’t sleep and all she can do is spend an entire night awake finishing a paper or a project or reading a book. She drinks too much, sometimes. She had to kick a terrible smoking habit her freshman year. She gets too invested in games on her phone; can sit for hours working on one task, just trying to get it perfect. She spends more time than she should thinking and worrying about past conversations and interactions. When she thinks someone is interesting she grabs onto them and won’t let go until she knows every single thing about them.

(She can’t stop fucking Beca, despite how bad she knows it is for her.)

She has an obsessive personality. It’s what makes her such a good competitor. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to achieve her goal, to dominate, to win. Because when she decides that she wants to do something, that she _has_ to do something? There’s no force on Earth that can stop her.

She already knows that this Worlds thing is going to drive her absolutely fucking _crazy_. She can feel it, lurking in her future. A premonition. An inevitability.

She’s powerless to stop it.

Beca is quietly watching her. Chloe can feel her gaze on the back of her head, and she runs her fingers roughly through her hair to try and shake the tingling sensation.

“Chloe…”

“Not now, Beca.”

Beca sighs. “Look, maybe… maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.”

Chloe whips her head around, eyes wide with disbelief, before she glares. “What are you talking about?”

Beca shrugs and leans her hip against Chloe’s desk, crossing one foot over the other. “I don’t know,” she says, with her eyes fixed pointedly to some spot over Chloe’s right shoulder. “Just… Maybe it’s time to think about other stuff.”

Chloe’s mouth drops open. “ _What_ other stuff?”

Beca shrugs again. “You know… school, jobs.” A slight pause. “Life.” There’s a strange expression on her face when she says ‘life’. Chloe has an odd moment of confusion where she wonders what Beca could _possibly_ mean by ‘ _life’_.

( _Does she mean ‘us’?_ )

Chloe shakes her head. “This group _is_ my life. I’ve intentionally failed Russian Lit _three_ times so I could be a Bella.” (Chloe’s not even totally sure if that’s true. It’s true she keeps failing, and it’s true that it maybe might not be entirely accidentally. Maybe she’s intentionally failing, maybe she isn’t. Maybe she’s failing so she can stay a Bella, or maybe she’s failing because she doesn’t understand Russian literary theory, or maybe she’s failing because she’s terrified of what life will be like, away from all of this, or maybe she’s failing because she’s worried if she graduates she’ll never see—) “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to us. _Ever_.”

Beca shakes her head. “Look, it… I mean, the hate mail, the death threats, it…” Beca pushes off the desk and takes a few steps forward. Chloe sits down on her bed and turns her head away. “I’ve seen what this does to you, Chloe, okay? And it sucks. I _know_ how much it sucks. But there… maybe this is a sign, you know? A sign that… that we can maybe start to step away, to scale back. To start focusing on things other than the Bellas, and—”

“Do you mean us?”

Beca blinks at her. Chloe can’t tell if she’s panicked or just confused. “What? What us? What are you talking about?”

Oh. Okay. So it’s gonna be like that, still.

Chloe looks down at her feet and shakes her head and thinks that she really shouldn’t be disappointed by this. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

She can’t see Beca, what with the looking-down-at-her-feet and all, but she hears Beca take a couple more steps towards her. (Can steps be sympathetic?) “This is all gonna be okay, Chlo,” Beca says, sinking down onto the bed next to her, her shoulder brushing against Chloe’s. “You just have to believe that it’ll be okay.”

She quietly acknowledges Beca’s sympathetic stance, but she knows it won’t really change anything about the way she thinks or feels or acts.

She knows it’s the opposite of what Beca wants, but Chloe vows to work twice as hard from there on out.

She is _not_ going to be the one responsible for ending the Barden Bellas. She’s not.

**

They pick up a legacy. And it isn’t even breaking the rules, because they _don’t_ recruit her because she comes to them on her own, and she _barely_ even auditions — they _basically_ just let her in because of who her mom is — so it’s totally fine and they totally don’t break any rules at all.

Suddenly, Chloe starts to feel just the slightest bit lighter, because with Emily in the house it also means that the Bellas won’t go extinct when they all graduate in the spring. They’ll leave someone behind to continue the Bellas traditions. There’ll be somebody, _something_ , after them.

Suddenly, it feels like there’s a glimmer of hope at the end of this long slog.

And yeah, maybe they shouldn’t let her in without talking to everyone first, maybe they shouldn’t make any decisions without Beca there, but Beca’s been missing for the entire day and she doesn’t pick up even though Chloe calls her six times, so if she isn’t going to take her leadership role seriously, Chloe certainly isn’t going to _make_ her.

(Maybe they should ask their Captain before they let in a new member, but Chloe _would have_ asked Beca if she had picked up her damn phone.)

So they let Legacy in.

And she’s a good kid. A little green around the gills, a little overeager, and she says some _really_ odd things sometimes, but she’s a good kid. And her voice isn’t half bad.

It’s nice to have her there as a distraction, to take their minds off of the absolute _terror_ surrounding the necessity of their win at Worlds. It’s nice to have new blood, to be able to show someone else the ropes of the acapella scene, to be able to impart knowledge and wisdom to the younger generation.

Having Emily around is nice for all of those reasons.

But most of all, she’s _hope_.

**

The Trebles throw some of the best parties around; everyone knows that. So on Legacy’s first night — and the first time since the summer that Chloe’s felt anything even remotely close to relief — they make their way to the Tiki Party.

Jesse greets them at the entrance (because of course he does).

“Bellas! Welcome welcome welcome!” He shouts, smile on his face, arms wide open in welcome and a red solo cup full of some sloshing liquid in his hand.

As the rest of the girls scatter off to find alcohol, boys, girls, or some combination therein, Chloe cuts right to the chase. If anyone knows where Beca’s been all day, Chloe’s sure her boyfriend will.

(That thought stings, just a little bit, but she ignores her smarting ego in favor of answers.)

“Jesse!” She exclaims, with as much enthusiasm as she can fake. “Where’s Beca? I thought she was gonna be with you tonight?” It sounds kind of weird, like they’re divorced parents discussing the shared custody of their kid.

Chloe feels like blushing as soon as the words leave her mouth, but Jesse doesn’t give her time to be embarrassed.

He tilts his head strangely, his brow furrowed in confusion. “I thought she was with you?”

Chloe frowns too. “I thought she was with _you_.”

They look at each other, and Chloe wonders, then, if it’s possible that he knows. She wonders if it… she wonders if there’s any way in _hell_ Jesse knows what’s going on with them.

_He can’t know, right? He can’t possibly know._

But the way they’re looking at each other, the way they so clearly acknowledge that they _share_ Beca, the way he knows to defer to her, the way he knows that she’s the only other person in Beca’s entire life, really, who could be spending time with her…?

It _feels_ like he knows.

But he _can’t_ know. He can’t. It isn’t possible.

When she gets over her paranoia about Jesse, when Benji comes up and distracts him by making a complete fool of himself in front of Emily, Chloe has a moment to stop and actually think about Beca. About where she is tonight. About the fact that her boyfriend doesn’t know where she is, either. About the fact that Beca seems to be using Chloe and Jesse each as an excuse for the other — because she _knows_ they never talk, that they would _never_ talk, that Chloe avoids him like he’s the damn plague — and something about that doesn’t sit right with her.

What could Beca’s goal be in lying about where she is to both her boyfriend _and_ her best friend? What possible reason could there be for that kind of behavior?

What could be so important that she would go missing for an entire day without telling either one of them?

Something sinks like lead in Chloe’s stomach, because this feels like familiar behavior, like warning signs, like sneaking around, like everything she recognizes from three years of doing _just_ this.

She wonders, then, if there’s someone else in the picture. Someone besides her and Jesse.

She wonders if there’s someone else and tries not to feel like she’s being cheated on. She and Beca aren’t in a relationship. She’s not the one being cheated _on_ , she’s the one being cheated _with_.

She tries not to feel the sickening, panicked sadness of infidelity.

It doesn’t exactly work.

When she _does_ finally spot Beca, she’s already too drunk to be smart about her actions. They dance too close together, Chloe hugs her too tightly, smacks her ass and grinds against her and uses the push of bodies and a desire not to plunge headfirst into the pool as a meager excuse to feel the flush of Beca’s body, the heat of her skin through her jeans, to feel her breath tickle at the skin of Chloe’s neck.

They’ve been doing this for years. It’s almost crazy, how familiar it all is. And every time, their excuses get flimsier and flimsier.

Beca still has a boyfriend, Chloe still has to graduate, and yet time and time again they find themselves tangled up together, naked in bed or stuffed into a bathroom stall or sneaking out of a party.

And Beca still has a boyfriend, and Chloe _knows_ it’s wrong, but she just can’t seem to stop.

**

She hates Das Sound Machine. And she _especially_ hates that small blonde bitch who leads them.

She thinks she can just show up out of nowhere with her blonde hair and European teeth and take their victory tour, take their fame, take their reputation… take everything Chloe’s ever worked for? She thinks she can just show up out of nowhere and stomp all over their team and their name?

Chloe hates her. And on top of hating her, she _really_ doesn’t get all the hype.

She isn’t even that _pretty_.

**

Beca and Chloe spend a lot of time together. They have to, obviously. The competition is approaching faster than Chloe thinks any of them realize. It makes sense that they spend a lot of time together.

But it isn’t just time spent in rehearsals or in their shared kitchen or watching movies with the other girls. It _isn’t_.

She wakes up and Beca is in her bed. She walks into her favorite coffee shop on campus and Beca is there, sitting at a table with her fingers flying over her keyboard and trackpad, headphones comically large compared to her small frame. They get meals together and do homework together and spend long nights in Beca’s room trying to plan choreography and pick set lists and simultaneously tackle everything their hectic lives demand they tackle.

(It doesn’t even feel like either one of them is doing it on purpose. Chloe doesn’t _think_ Beca is stalking her, and _she_ certainly isn’t going to extreme efforts to change up her daily routine.)

(Their lives and routines are just, apparently, more intertwined than Chloe thought.)

She can feel Beca watching her at rehearsal. And yeah, their rehearsals are a scrambled mess right now, what with trying to teach new skills and drill in the choreography and whip everyone back into shape. So yeah, Beca’s going to be watching what the girls are doing, making sure that they’re following instructions and picking up on directions.

But _Chloe_ planned most of this choreography. (For all Beca’s skills as a DJ, mixer, and arranger, she has almost no rhythm and even _less_ coordination; Chloe barely wants to let her _dance_ in the group numbers, so she’s _definitely_ not about to let her choreograph anything.) Chloe’s the one who taught the moves to Beca; she’s the one who’s teaching the Bellas. Logically, Beca kind of has no business watching her in rehearsal. Chloe doesn’t need her attention. Beca _should_ be focused on Emily’s constant state of mild-panic, or maybe on Amy’s propensity for slipping out of sight whenever anyone mentions cardio, or the look of unbridled glee on Lily’s face when they announce that they’re considering using flaming props, or the fact that Jessica and Ashley spend more time shoving each other than they do trying to learn the routine.

But Beca doesn’t watch them.

While she has her headphones on mixing tracks for their performances, she also has her eyes on Chloe more than half the time.

Chloe tries not to blush at the extra attention. She tries to keep her head down and she tries to stay focused.

(But maybe she likes it, just a little bit. Maybe she lets her hands linger for a few seconds too long on Stacie’s hips when she knows Beca’s watching her, because maybe she knows Beca has a jealous streak that runs deep. Maybe she knows that Beca likes to watch her flirt with other people, dance with other people, tease other people and drive them up the wall with kisses that promise so much more than she ever delivers. Maybe she knows that Beca likes watching Chloe do this with other people, knowing that at the end of the day she’s the one who’s going to pull rasping moans from the back of Chloe’s throat.)

They spend a lot of time together. Sometimes they’re with each other for a full twenty-four hours, from morning to morning.

Other days, Beca disappears for broad stretches of time, completely drops all communication, and vanishes without a trace.

Chloe tries not to think about it, about the clear disparities in their schedules, about how they seem to run so hot and cold. There are days when Beca can’t get enough of her, when she’s hard-pressed to leave Chloe’s side for longer than it takes her to grab lunch or for Chloe to head off to the gym for 90 minutes. But then there are days on end where they hardly seem to even talk.

She doesn’t understand it.

Beca watches her in rehearsal like she wants to devour her, but Chloe can never tell if today is going to be a day Beca decides to see her or completely ghost her.

It breeds insecurity, distrust, unhappiness, and a certain amount of tension that Chloe is not fond of.

It’s been almost four weeks of this pseudo-game, of the teasing and the watching, of trying to get a room full of college girls to focus on a single dance routine for longer than 20 minutes, and Chloe still has no idea what the rules are.

All she knows is, they’re a month into their rehearsal time and they still don’t have a set-list.

**

Beca’s mysterious disappearances get more and more frequent as the next month passes. The hours and days Chloe has become so used to, the stretches of time that used to be filled with Beca and Beca alone, are now gaping and vacant.

She’s tired, like almost all the time. Chloe’s tired too, but Beca is a different kind of tired, a wearied sort of exhausted that feels too intense for the amount of work Chloe knows she’s doing.

It’s almost like Beca isn’t sleeping, anymore.

But Chloe can’t tell, because Beca hasn’t shown up in her bed for almost two weeks now, so she has no clue if Beca is sleeping. (She tries not to think that she’s done something wrong. She tries to give Beca the space she so clearly craves.)

With what little time the two of them _do_ get to spend together, well… choreography and set-lists and arrangements and logistics aren’t exactly high on their list of priorities.

(When they _do_ get the chance to see each other for longer than 30 minutes, Beca practically ravishes her. Chloe has learned to wear more dresses and skirts, for ease of access, because usually by the time Beca slips into her bedroom she’s too worked up and frustrated to do more than shove Chloe’s dress up around her waist and bury her head between pale thighs. She’s too impatient to even undress fully, too impatient to pull unnecessary clothes from either of their bodies.)

(She’ll kick her jeans off, pin Chloe’s hands above her head, and climb on top of her, straddle her face, and ride out her orgasm against the swift pressure of Chloe’s tongue.)

But they’re almost two months into rehearsing and they don’t have a set-list.

And it’s beginning to be a problem.

“Yeah, Bec, we’re gonna need those arrangements ASAP so we can really nail down our choreography,” Chloe reminds as sweetly as she can, a little out of breath as she glides by the piano that Beca has taken over as a sort of make-shift work station.

She can see the annoyance pull at the corner of Beca’s mouth. “Right on top of that, Chlo.”

The nicknames are strained, like venom between them.

They’re both tense. They’ve been working long days and Beca’s been disappearing so often and midterms are approaching and they haven’t slept together (actually slept in the same bed, that is) since before they saw DSM at that dumb car show.

And it’s starting to show.

(But Beca’s gone so often, lately. Distracted by her phone and her mixes and her computer and Jesse, she figures. Part of it must be Jesse. She’s gone so often that Chloe feels like she hardly sees her.)

Beca shoots her a look over Legacy’s shoulder. Chloe just sighs.

**

Things with Jesse feel weird, and strained. He’s over a lot less — Chloe’s pretty sure she’s _never_ seen him in their house this year.

She tries not to think about it. It really isn’t any of her business, after all. If Beca and Jesse are having problems, then Beca will tell her on her own time.

They’re best friends. That’s what best friends do. They talk about things.

Except maybe they don’t really talk about things, because there are so many topics that seem off-limits between them recently. The fact that they can’t come up with a complete set, the fact that they’re graduating in the spring, the fact that Beca has a boyfriend, the fact that they’re having an affair, the fact that Beca keeps disappearing, the fact that Chloe desperately wants to trust Beca but she doesn’t know if she can…

She tries to ask Beca about it, about what’s eating up all of her time and why she won’t talk about what it is.

Chloe drums her fingers nervously against her desk, chewing on her bottom lip, trying to work up the courage to bring it up.

When she finally does, Beca brushes her off. “Just school stuff, Chlo,” she says from her spot on Chloe’s bed, frowning as her fingers skim over her trackpad, eyes rapidly tracing across her computer screen. “Nothing big. Don’t worry, I’m completely focused on the Bellas.”

Chloe wants to scream and shake her and tell her that that’s not the issue, not at all. She wants Beca to know that she’s worried about _her_ , too, not just the team.

She tries to press.

But Beca just laughs and shakes her head and stands and pushes Chloe back against her desk, straddles her thighs, grinds against her.

“You’re… changing the subject,” Chloe breathes raggedly against her lips.

Beca laughs and smirks and kisses the question off of Chloe’s tongue.

It’s hard to think after that.

**

Chloe’s done a lot of weird things over the course of her collegiate acapella career.

Singing in a rich guy’s basement against her arch nemeses and the Greenbay Packers?

Definitely in the top six.

Jesse’s there (because of course he is, because of course the Trebles are), and when he and Beca meet in the middle of the room they both look surprised to see each other.

“Hey!” Jesse exclaims, and Beca blinks back at him and frowns.

“Hey. What are you doing here? What is this?”

If Chloe were someone different, she would take note of the way Beca and Jesse are surprised to see each other, of the way Beca frowns when he speaks, of the way their eyes spark with a lack of communication. If Chloe were someone different, she would file that information away into her brain as ‘interesting.’

As it stands, she simply blinks and looks away.

~~

Seeing Beca sing Carrie Underwood while she angrily runs her hands over some strange guy’s chest? Chloe’s not gonna lie, it kinda works for her.

And when Beca turns around and shoots her a wink when she sings _“Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats”_ Chloe isn’t sure if she’s supposed to be offended at the implication, turned on because _fuck_ is Beca’s voice sexy, or afraid that they’re being pretty shockingly, _blatantly_ obvious.

Her thighs clench, so she decides she’s going to be turned on.

(Even after they lose, a humiliating defeat because Legacy can’t seem to sing anything that she didn’t write herself, Chloe still hops onto the bathroom counter and lets Beca fuck her roughly as she breathes hot expletives into the side of Chloe’s neck.)

**

No matter how old she gets, or how many shows she does, or how many times she competes, Chloe thinks that she’ll never really be able to shake the panic-attack-in-the-middle-of-the-dressing-room cliché.

Even now — even when they’re only going out to perform in front of some senior citizens who wouldn’t know the difference between Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber — Chloe finds herself pacing in the dressing room, heart racing, palms sweaty and body overheated in her glittering jumpsuit (who thought that was a good idea again?).

“What are you thinking about, Chloe?” Amy asks her, eyes flitting between Chloe’s face and her own reflection as she touches up her eyeliner.

Chloe knows she’s half-distracted and not really looking for an answer, but her anxiety is bubbling up from the pit of her stomach and her fingers tremble where they fidget with her zipper and she feels the desperate, aching need for _someone_ to understand.

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” She exclaims, her feet moving faster along the floor, “I have many, _many_ doubts. If we don’t nail this, then we won’t win the Worlds. And if we don’t win the Worlds, there will be no more Bellas. And then without the Bellas, my life will have had no… you know…” _meaning_.

Chloe can feel herself hyperventilating. It is not a good feeling.

She thinks her vision might be greying out.

Then, soft hands on her cheeks as the world cuts back into sharp focus. “Hey. Hey, Chloe, look at me,” Beca is standing in front of her, eyes wide with concern, but still kind, so very kind. Chloe immediately softens, but doesn’t relax completely.

Beca looks around them at the other Bellas. They have about twenty minutes before they’re supposed to go on stage. “I’m gonna take her for some air really fast, okay?” Beca says, more of an announcement than an actual question. “Get her to calm down.”

Were Chloe in any other state of mind, she might have been insulted by the insinuation that she _needs_ to calm down. She isn’t some 17 th century women incapacitated by a bout of ‘hysteria.’

But she lets Beca slip their fingers together, lets Beca lead her out of the hot (unbearably, stiflingly hot) building and through some side door Chloe had barely noticed.

Beca goes down on her, slow and long, behind the building. It’s the middle of the afternoon and anyone could walk by and see them, any of the girls could poke their heads out the back door and catch a glimpse at any moment, and Chloe mutters a half-hearted discouragement, but it doesn’t stop Beca from sinking to her knees.

Chloe’s sweats are pooled around one ankle, and Beca has those ridiculous braids covering half of her head, but Chloe still manages to weave her fingers through Beca’s loose hair and grip tightly, hold her head gently, as Beca tongues her with languid movements that they _really_ don’t have time for.

But _God_ it’s nice.

Chloe rides Beca’s tongue to a slow orgasm, letting out only a few breathy gasps and moans in between biting her lip tightly. It’s almost soft, the way she comes down. Beca treats her so softly.

When she’s done, and Beca clambers to her feet, mouth a little red and chin a little wet, she kisses Chloe softly on the lips and Chloe feels like melting all over again.

“Do you feel better now?”

“Much.”

“So you’re calm? You aren’t gonna start freaking out again and scare the kid?”

“I’m fine Beca. Really.” Another kiss. “Thank you for that.”

Beca’s eyes twinkle as she says, “Believe me, it was my pleasure.”

~~

It doesn’t end well. She’s relaxed going into it but… it’s a goddamn shit show. Cynthia Rose catches on fire, for God’s sake.

They clearly can’t beat DSM at their game.

Chloe, downbeat and downtrodden, shoulders slumped with humiliation and shame, runs her hand over the phone in her pocket, and considers.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

She dials Aubrey’s number, and hopes she isn’t about to regret this.

**

When they pile out of the bus a few days later, Aubrey allows them approximately fifty seconds to embrace her and laugh and smile and ask about her life before she’s back in drill sergeant mode and berating them.

“It is with great _sorrow_ , and _regret_ ,” she says, walking down the line of Bellas, her eyes hard and a sneer barely twitching at the side of her nose, “that I had to watch our once _proud_ organization become a national _disgrace_.”

Chloe doesn’t know whether to sigh or smile. She knew calling in Aubrey was a last resort. Knew she wouldn’t take it easy on them. Knew she would yell and undermine and do whatever she could to whip them into shape.

Maybe part of her wanted them all to get away, to experience something outside of Barden, to spend real time together talking and learning and becoming a family, connecting the way they needed to win. Maybe part of her wanted to just not have to be in charge, anymore.

So, she’s not sure if she should be relieved at Aubrey’s show of force, or if she should wince. She kind of wanted this, after all. And she _definitely_ asked for it.

But also… yeah. Really should have seen this coming.

~~

They’re sleeping in a tent. All of them. One tent. On the goddamn ground. Sleepovers are one thing but this…

Chloe lies face to face with Beca.

“What are we doing here?” Beca hiss-whispers at her.

They’re so close. They’re never this close unless they’re kissing. Never this close around so many people they know. Never this close when it’s quiet and platonic and not-intimate.

Chloe doesn’t know what to do. She’s so used to being in this position and being able to claim Beca’s lips with her own, slide their mouths together and feel Beca sigh as her body softens against her.

But they can’t kiss now, because they’re sharing a tent with every girl they know, and that would be wildly inappropriate.

( _And also_ , she belatedly thinks, with a little mental prompting, _it’s because I don’t want to_.)

(But that feels like a lie.)

“We’re bonding,” is how Chloe decides to answer her. “You seem so tense, do you need a backrub?” She reaches a hand out to brush against Beca’s forehead (because when she doesn’t know what to do she defaults to ‘flirtation’), but Beca is grumpy, and her arms are crossed over her chest, and she cranes her head to knock Chloe’s hand away without sinking into the touch.

“Several body parts are touching my back right now, thank you.”

“You know Beca, we’re very close, but I feel like this retreat is really going to let us know everything about each other.”

“Oh, is that right?”

(Are they flirting right now? Chloe swears she can’t even tell anymore, can’t even decipher what’s regular banter and what’s loaded suggestion.)

Beca looks half-ready to snap at her, clearly not enjoying Chloe’s playful streak. “I wanna go home,” she mutters.

“This is an important part of our bonding experience, Beca. You can’t just go home because you don’t like being outdoors.”

Beca huffs, rolls over, and tosses over her shoulder, “You are so weird and I don’t like you right now.”

Chloe slides closer, ever so softly closer, so that her knees are tucked into the crook of Beca’s legs and Beca can feel her breath, hot and languid, against the back of her neck. “You still like me,” Chloe whispers, and Beca shivers but doesn’t respond.

~~

Chloe wakes up early the next morning with Beca tucked under her chin, and even though she’s smashed in the middle of twelve girls and she spent the night on the ground and someone’s elbow is digging sharply into her back, she smiles into the cold morning air.

~~

Aubrey’s training sucks. Chloe hurts practically everywhere. And she’s got mud caked in her boots and lake water in her ears, and she’s spent more time being lifted and hoisted into the air, spent more time with her body flush against everyone else’s, more time crawling through trenches and climbing over logs, than she really ever planned.

But it’s working. They’re singing together and they’re working as a team and it’s _working_ and she can hardly even _believe_ it.

She thinks that maybe she’s finally done something right.

Until Beca has to go and fuck it all up.

“Sorry, what are we doing?” Beca breaks the rhythm of their song, her hair tossed up onto her head in a messy bun that’s pulling apart at the edges. Aubrey frowns, clearly not expecting the interruption.

Chloe is the one who answers. “We’re rediscovering our sound,” she says, trying to keep her voice light.

“ _Are_ we?” Beca looks around at the group, everywhere but Chloe’s face, her mouth open in put-out disbelief. “Because it feels like we’re just singing songs that would _never_ go in our set.”

Chloe folds her arms over her chest. “Beca, come on,” she implores.

“ _No_. Look, none of us know how to beat Das Sound Machine but I _know_ it’s not gonna be by doing _this_.”

Aubrey clears her throat and cuts in, annoyance tinging her words, “This is just an exercise in finding harmony, Beca. Sometimes you have to break things down before you can build them back up again.”

“I have more important things to do!” Beca yells. Her face is red, her eyes wild.

Despite her best efforts to remain calm and neutral, Chloe is insulted. “What could be more important than _this_?” She asks, incredulously.

Beca grits her teeth. “Nothing, okay? Forget it.”

But Chloe’s angry, now. Beca doesn’t get to just blow up at them and then grumble and whine and play the martyr because she isn’t getting her way. Not today. “No,” Chloe says, turning to face her fully, “you don’t think that we haven’t all realized you’ve been a little checked out lately?”

Amy, from somewhere off to Chloe’s left, sighs and says, “Come on Beca, just tell her.”

Beca glares at her, murder in her eyes.

 “I heard that!” Chloe exclaims. Her voice wavers and hitches, her mind running through a thousand and one different terrible scenarios when she asks, “Tell me what?”

“Ah,” Amy shifts on her feet, “you misunderstood me. I clearly said, ‘Romp on, Beca, just shmell ah.” Amy grimaces. Chloe pulls a face. “Listen, I don’t want you guys to fight. You’re Beca and Chloe. Together your Bloe. And everyone loves a good bloe.”

Despite the fact that Chloe has no idea how to interpret that sentence, it seems to work on Beca, who, shifting uncomfortably where she stands, finally huffs and says, “Okay. Fine” A beat passes before she next speaks. “I’ve been interning at a recording studio, and a _legit_ music producer wants to hear my work. _God forbid_ I have something going on outside this group.”

“Okay. So why would you keep something like that from us?” (But she knows her face says, _Why would you keep something like that from_ me _?)_ She feels on the verge of tears, and she hates it desperately.

“’Cause you’re obsessed!” Beca shouts, her words angry and cutting. “You _all_ are! We’re graduating, and the only person thinking about life after the Bellas is _me_.”

“What is so _wrong_ with being focused on the Bellas? This has been my _family_ for seven years.”

“Yeah!” Beca screams, “’Cause you’re too scared to leave! Sack _up_ , dude.”

Chloe recoils like she’s been struck. “Okay, so you’ve been lying to us for the entire year, and now you’re just gonna flake out? _Now_ you’re gonna flake out? When the Worlds is like, _right_ after graduation?”

“Oh my God.” Beca throws her hands up in exasperation. “ _Enough_ about the Worlds! I can’t. I’m outta here.”

“Oh, okay, you’re just gonna leave now!”

“We all have to eventually, Chloe! It might as well be now!” She pauses to look at the rest of the girls. “If you all knew what was good for you, you’d follow me!”

She stomps away but doesn’t make it farther than a few feet before there’s a loud _snap_ , and a scream, and suddenly Beca is fifteen feet in the air.

Chloe’s not sure what would have happened, had Beca not gotten caught up in that bear trap. She thinks about it often, about how differently things might have turned out if not for one giant net and a misplaced step. She probably would have let Beca go, probably wouldn’t have chased after her, probably would have let her leave and go back to her boyfriend and her internship and probably would have let her quit the group, if that’s what she wanted.

She’s not sure what would have happened if something hadn’t stopped Beca, but in the end, she’s glad Beca doesn’t leave.

But it takes her a few years to figure it out.

~~

That night, sitting around the campfire with the rest of the Bellas, Chloe thinks about how very different her life could have been, were it not for a few choices.

She almost didn’t come to Barden. She thought it was too close to home, didn’t like the proximity of the campus, toyed with going up north and experiencing a real winter, for a change. But she came to Barden.

If she hadn’t met that crazy-intense blonde girl in her first year psych course, she probably wouldn’t have joined the Bellas. Probably would have let her singing career end when she graduated from high school and left the choir. Probably would have joined the student government, or maybe the campus newspaper. But she took Intro Psych and she sat next to a girl with perfectly curled blonde hair and too many pens in front of her than should have been strictly necessary, and Chloe smiled at her and introduced herself and the girl said her name was “Aubrey” and the rest was history.

If she had been on time to their ICCA finals performance her junior year, Alice wouldn’t have reprimanded her and Aubrey, and she wouldn’t have sown doubts about their leadership abilities, and maybe Aubrey would have stridden on stage with confidence, and maybe she wouldn’t have blown chunks all over the audience, and maybe they wouldn’t have been desperate for new talent, and maybe she wouldn’t have thought to approach Beca.

And if she hadn’t been in that shower when she was, she wouldn’t have heard Beca sing, and she wouldn’t have practically accosted her into joining the Bellas.

Sitting around the campfire, thinking about serendipity, Chloe leans forward and asks Beca, quietly, “Why wouldn’t you _tell_ me about the internship?” Beca glances around them, at the other girls talking amongst themselves as Aubrey passes out skewers and marshmallows. Beca leans forward, mirroring Chloe’s position. “You’re my best _friend_ , Beca,” Chloe continues, though the words taste sour on her tongue. Beca looks at her with an expression Chloe can’t quite read. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”

Beca shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Becs we… we tell each other everything. And this was important to you. Did you not think you could trust me?”

Beca sighs and looks down at her hands. “It’s just… everything’s changing so fast, and I’m putting all this pressure on myself, you know? I don’t wanna fail.”

Chloe feels a desperate urge to reach out and touch her, but she’s too far away. “If you just would’ve said something…”

“Yeah, I know, but I’m weird about that stuff. You know that.” Beca is smiling at her across the fire pit. Chloe sees an understanding in her eyes.

She finally notices that it’s quiet around them. She looks up. Amy’s eyes dart back and forth between the two of them, and Chloe _knows_ the looks they’re sharing are suspicious, but she doesn’t feel the panicky embarrassment she’s grown so used to feeling.

Beca also notices a few of the girls watching them. She looks a little shy, and glances down at her hands again. “I thought I could figure it out on my own, and I can’t.” She says, louder this time, drawing the rest of the circle into their conversation. “Maybe I don’t have anything original to say.”

If there’s one thing that’s undeniably true about the Bellas, it’s that they are fiercely loyal of their members. The second the words are out of Beca’s mouth, there are a dozen voices rising to shoot the notion down. Even Aubrey joins in, admitting that without Beca’s originality they never would have stood a chance of winning _anything_.

Beca smiles at all of her friends, but Chloe knows that their words do little to reassure her. She allows them to throw praise her way for a few minutes before she waves them all off, thanking them. Chloe knows nothing’s really changed for her, but it’s sweet of her to pretend.

When everyone has quieted down, Chloe, feeling a little brave all of a sudden, clears her throat and says, “I know this might not seem like it, but I’m afraid, too. To move on,” she glances at Beca, “to graduate… it’s really scary.”

Amy mutters, from off to the side, “Yeah, it actually does seem like it, ‘cause you’re barely holding it together.”

Chloe ignores her.

Aubrey smiles kindly, the only one with any real experience on the subject. “Oh, well, it doesn’t have to be scary, Chloe. When I was graduating, I never pictured myself running a retreat in the middle of the woods, but here I am. Take it from someone who has dealt with some serious control issues. Like my dad always said, ‘In the minefield of life, you must be prepared to lose both feet.’ And I think you all know what I mean.”

Though she has no idea what her friend means, Chloe still finds some solace in the words. She nods decisively. “Then it’s decided. This year I _will_ graduate. The Worlds will be my swan song.” Noticing a few skeptical looks in the group, Chloe doubles down. “I mean it. I’ll pursue my passion. I’ll teach underprivileged children how to sing. Or I’ll dance exotically. Whatever offers the most money.”

They laugh, and Chloe smiles, and the warmth from the fire seeps into her bones and she feels good; honestly, genuinely _good_.

Beca speaks up from across the fire. “You know,” she says, eyes roaming the circle of women, “when I look back on this, I’m not gonna remember performing or competing.” Her gaze lands on Chloe as she continues to address the group, and something feels soft in the way her eyes blink open. “I’m gonna remember you weirdos. It makes me really sad to think it won’t ever be like this again.” She pauses to take a breath before admitting, “I’m gonna miss you guys.”

Chloe, eyes full of tears, starts singing: “I got my ticket for the long way ‘round.”

Beca half-laughs, half-cries, as she joins in on the next line.

~~

It feels like a silly thing, but when Beca looks at her when the song is over, they both smile. And Chloe may be barely holding on by a thread, and she and Beca may be dipping in and out of communicating with each other, and she may be petrified of leaving and graduating and moving on with her life… but she _smiles_. Because here, with these girls, around this fire, Chloe feels like there’s a lot to smile about. And it may be ridiculous and naïve, but she allows herself to feel hope.

_You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone._

~~

They sneak off to have sex against some tree and it’s slow, slower than it probably should be considering they’re outside and definitely in public and definitely not being as quiet as they should be, and they make eye contact when Beca slips inside of her and they stay that way, foreheads pressed against each other, exchanging breaths back and forth in the cool night, and Beca kisses her when she comes, and Chloe’s lip trembles. Beca kisses her softly, and Chloe feels like crying.

When she pulls away she sees that Beca also has tears in her eyes.

She’s too afraid to ask why.

**

Chloe never thought that the first person who would discover what was going on between them would be the Legacy.

They don’t mean for her to find out, don’t mean for her to figure out what’s going on.

 _“Figure out”_ is the wrong way of saying it. It’s more like… _“she walks in on them while Beca has two fingers buried in Chloe’s cunt”_ than anything else.

Which… they should have known better. Legacy’s like a freaking puppy, sometimes. Following Beca around, trailing after Chloe, eyes wide like she’s petrified of doing something wrong and making the rest of them mad at her. Jumpy, and fidgety, and always walking on eggshells.

So Beca and Chloe have been actively trying to loosen her up, trying to make her more comfortable, to get her to feel like part of the group, another sister. They’ve been actively trying to break down personal boundaries – trying to make sure Emily can take over for them when they all (presumably) graduate in the spring.

They really should have known better.

Chloe really needs to learn to lock her fucking door.

It’s only the small, frightened “ _Eep_!” that comes out of her mouth, only the sound of a stack of textbooks hitting the floor with a loud _smack_ , that rips Beca and Chloe away from each other.

Beca stumbles, Chloe yanks the sheet up to cover her chest, and Emily slams her eyes shut.

Beca is still scrambling. “Shit. Fuck. Emily….”

“I am so sorry!” Emily practically yells, a hand glued over her eyes. “So so so sorry! I didn’t… I’ll just leave and go away and forget I saw anything. I mean I didn’t see anything! Saw nothing. I… nothing.”

She turns quickly, her eyes still shut, and slams her shoulder against the doorframe in her haste to make it out of the room.

Chloe is already wordlessly putting on her clothes. Even as Beca scrambles around the room, mumbling and snatching for something to wear, Chloe has already thrown on sweatpants and a loose sweater and she slips from the room without looking behind her.

It isn’t hard for her to find Emily.

She’s hiding out in the family room, arms crossed over the pillow in her lap, headphones in her ears and music blaring loud enough that Chloe can hear it from across the room.

Her eyes dart up, panicked and scared, when Chloe appears in the doorway.

Chloe sighs, takes a few steps forward, and settles onto the coffee table. She makes a motion for Emily to pull the earbuds out, and the younger girl swallows thickly before she complies.

Chloe rubs her hands against her clothed knees. “We should probably talk, Em.”

She looks at Chloe, eyes wide, and shakes her head violently. “No need. I didn’t… didn’t see anything. Nothing to talk about.”

Chloe sighs again and shifts a little closer. “Em…” She tries, softly.

Emily shakes her head and clutches her pillow tighter to her chest. “Look, it isn’t my business. I didn’t… it isn’t my business. I should have knocked. I don’t know anything about the situation and I shouldn’t have barged in and I—”

“Take a breath, Emily,” Chloe says, as kindly as she can muster. She reaches out and puts a hand on Emily’s shaking knee.

The girl looks close to tears. “I’m so _sorry_ , Chloe. I should have knocked.”

Chloe shakes her head. “No, it’s… We shouldn’t have…” She trails off, unsure of what to say. She just shakes her head again. “I’m sorry that you had to see that.”

Emily swallows thickly. Chloe can see the questions burning in her eyes, can see the disbelief and hurt and shock.

Some part of her knows that the kid won’t ever look at her the same way; not after this.

It breaks her heart, just a little bit.

She knows Emily knows about Beca and Jesse, knows that Em knows they’re still together. She also suspects that Emily could tell pretty easily that this wasn’t a one-time-only thing.

No one could have walked in on that scene and come away believing it was the first time Beca and Chloe have ever had sex.

Chloe doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to explain it. She knows she can’t defend herself.

“It’s… complicated,” she finally says, which is a pretty lame sentence to settle on, but it’s about as much as she can manage.

Emily nods quickly, eyes wide. “Complicated,” she says like she’s relieved Chloe has put a not-so-terrible word on it.

“We… it’s… yeah. It’s complicated.”

Emily swallows thickly. “I won’t say anything, Chloe. You know that.”

Chloe’s heart breaks all over again. “I wasn’t —” She shakes her head — “I didn’t think you would.”

“Well… yeah. I won’t. I don’t… it isn’t my business.”

But Chloe feels very much like it _is_ her business… like it _should_ be her business.

Because right now, apparently, it’s _nobody’s_ business. It isn’t Chloe’s or Beca’s (because they never talk about it), it isn’t Jesse’s (because he doesn’t know), and now it isn’t Emily’s, even though she knows everyone involved and cares enough about all of them.

Maybe it _should_ be her business. Because it should be _somebody’s_ fucking business.

Maybe if it was Emily’s business she’d talk about it (or force Beca and Chloe to talk about it). Maybe if it was Emily’s business, it would make Chloe stop. Maybe if it was real to someone besides her and Beca, it would make a difference.

But Chloe doesn’t say any of that.

She just nods, eyes downturned, stomach roiling with guilt. “Thank you, Emily.”

Emily nods. “Yeah. Of course. Sisters, right?”

Chloe wants to throw up.

She doesn’t, though. She just smiles at the younger girl, small and tired and pained, and nods her head.

Emily smiles back at her, but Chloe doesn’t know her well enough to know if it’s a real smile or a façade.

She figures now probably isn’t the best time to ask.

She stands from the table and makes her way back upstairs, feeling slow and heavy and exhausted and downtrodden and weary.

When she gets up the stairs, she sees Beca, now fully dressed, leaning against Chloe’s closed door.

Beca, fidgeting with her hands, doesn’t move. Chloe stands still in front of her and just stares.

Finally, Beca clears her throat. “Is she gonna say anything?” She asks.

Chloe doesn’t know if she was expecting a different reaction, but for whatever reason those five words make her _seethe_. “For fuck’s sake, Beca,” she snarls.

Beca huffs and grits her teeth. “I’m _sorry_ , Chloe, what else would you want me to—?”

“ _No_. She isn’t going to _say anything_.”

But Beca either doesn’t hear her or doesn’t feel like shutting up, because she keeps talking. “I have to _work_ with her. Christ, we’re still trying to make that demo for—”

And Chloe, anger boiling in the pit of her stomach, can’t bring herself to _care_. “Jesus Beca, think about something other than yourself for _once_!”

Beca glares at her and pushes off the door, striding forward. “All I’ve _done_ is think about other people! I’ve dedicated my _life_ to this group for _three years_ , dude! How can you think that—”

“How can you _possibly_ think we’re still talking about the _group_?”

Beca freezes. Her hands drop to her sides as some sort of strange expression takes over her face, something very close to recognition.

Chloe hates it, whatever it is.

“Chlo…” Beca starts to say, but Chloe doesn’t wait around to listen to her. She shoves past her, pushes open her bedroom door, and slams it shut behind her. The lock clicks with finality, and it’s only then that she lets herself cry.

She hears something that sounds like clothing sliding against wood, and some part of her wants to open the door to see if Beca’s collapsed against it, to see if Beca has sunk to the floor, to see if Beca is sitting with her back pressed against cold wood, head tilted back, wanting to say something to Chloe but not knowing how.

She doesn’t open the door.

Beca doesn’t knock.

**

He comes to Worlds. Chloe almost can’t believe it, almost can’t believe that he would fly across the damn world _just_ to support Beca.

But then again she _can_ , because Jesse is actually a really, _really_ good guy. And she fucking _hates_ him for it. She hates that he’s so supportive, hates that he’s so attentive, hates that he cares about Beca and hates that Beca cares about him. She hates him for the way he loves Beca, so helplessly and completely, because she loves Beca, too, in just the same way.

She hates that he has Beca, while she has nothing.

She hates him.

She hates that she really has no reason to hate him.

So she fucks Beca backstage, just because she _can_ , just because _she’s_ there and _he_ _isn’t_ , and for some reason it feels different, this time. It’s the first time they’ve been this close since Emily walked in on them, since they yelled at each other outside Chloe’s room, since Beca looked at her and _saw her_.

Beca holds eye contact with her the entire time and for some reason it feels different.

After they win, after they celebrate on stage, after they hoist the giant trophy above their heads, after they finally manage to stumble backstage, they find themselves sequestered together in the throng of people moving around and congratulating them. Amy lifts Lily completely off the ground when she wraps her in a bear hug; Stacie, Jessica, and Ashley have formed a dancing circle around Legacy; and even _Aubrey_ is jumping for joy.

Chloe, laughing as she watches her closest friends embrace, finally turns her eyes to Beca.

The smile slips from her lips and the world seems to fade away.

Beca is looking at her, eyes wide and lips half-parted. Chloe notices how close they are, how they’re pressed completely together.

She feels slightly panicked, feels antsy, feels the need to glance around them to see if anyone is looking at them, to see if anyone is watching, but it’s so _hard_ to rip her gaze from Beca’s.

She opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, Beca lifts herself onto her toes and brushes her lips against Chloe’s ever so softly.

It’s the most innocent kiss they’ve ever shared, but it feels so _different_ , it feels so much _more_ , that it completely steals the breath from Chloe’s lungs.

Her eyes fall shut and she stands there, frozen, as Beca finally pulls away.

By the time she opens her eyes, Beca’s already long gone.

She doesn’t call Chloe for two weeks.

Chloe tries to pretend she doesn’t spend the entire time glued to her phone, waiting with anticipation.

**


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She always knew it couldn’t last._
> 
> _But she never thought it would all blow up in their faces._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a quick note: I break my chapters up into years. Chapter 1 is one year, Chapter 2 is another, etc. etc. This chapter is a lot shorter than previous chapters because it takes place within a few weeks of Chapter 4, meaning that it’s still part of that same year. It’s more like a Chapter 4.5. I would have put it in Chapter 4, but too much happened in that chapter and too much happens in this chapter for that to make sense.
> 
> There might end up being more than 6 chapters when I'm done. Not totally sure how the ending is going to play out yet.
> 
> Also, this one is pretty rough. I apologize in advance.
> 
> If you want to dish or talk/yell at me, feel free to follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

She finally tells Aubrey.

She doesn’t mean to, not really. It just sort of slips out one night when she’s visiting Aubrey at her new job and they’re talking and laughing over a few bottles of wine.

(Chloe is a little drunk. She thinks she might hate being drunk.)

“So what about you?” Aubrey asks, a lazy smile on her face and her head tilted back, eyes glazed over and bright with the sheen of alcohol. “I haven’t heard anything about your love life in… God, years, I think?” She takes another large sip of her wine. “What’s up with that?”

Chloe means to say nothing. She’s got the practiced answer all lined up in her mind: _Oh, you know, nothing serious; I’m focusing on school; looking ahead to the future; haven’t met anyone exciting in a while; there’s been nothing to write home about._ She opens her mouth to answer, but somewhere between her brain and her lips something changes.

“I’m sleeping with Beca.” She says it with a half-laugh; a wry, disbelieving chuckle. She thinks it might be the first time she’s ever said the words out loud. It’s definitely the first time she’s ever said them to another person.

(Emily doesn’t count. She found out on her own.)

Aubrey doesn’t answer her. Chloe laughs again and runs both her hands over her face.

The seconds tick by in agonizing silence. Chloe doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe too loudly.

Half a minute passes — and it’s the longest 30 seconds Chloe thinks she’s ever had to endure — before Aubrey makes a noise somewhere in the back of her throat and it makes Chloe look up.

(She didn’t think anything could be worse than Emily walking in on them all those months ago. But this, she thinks as she looks at Aubrey’s ashen face, this is definitely worse.)

Aubrey stares at her, eyes wide and disbelieving. “You’re _what_?”

Chloe can’t meet her eyes. She wants to bury her head in a mound of blankets, to dig a hole and climb into it and never leave, to open Aubrey’s window, jump through, disappear into the forest and never come back. Maybe one of those corporate groups crowding the lodge will let her slip onto their bus and hitch a ride back to whatever town they’re from.

But she’s already started talking and she’s a little drunk and _God_ she just can’t seem to keep the words down. They come up, unbidden, like vomit. “I’m sleeping with Beca,” she repeats.

“What…” Aubrey blinks so rapidly it looks like she’s having a seizure. “But she… isn’t she still dating—?”

“Yeah,” Chloe cuts her off, eyes downcast. “She is.”

It’s silent between them. Chloe spins her wine around inside her glass.

Aubrey clears her throat and Chloe can only barely manage to flick her eyes up for the briefest of moments before shame and humiliation and guilt force her to turn away again. “How… how long has this been going on?” Aubrey asks, like she isn’t sure whether to be angry or sympathetic.

Chloe sighs. “Since her freshman year.”

“Oh, Chlo…” The pity is evident in her tone. It makes Chloe’s stomach roil.

She hates pity.

“I know, Bree. I know.”

“You… for _four_ years?”

Chloe nods. “Four years.”

Aubrey shifts across the room, moving to join Chloe where she sits on the couch. Aubrey slips her hand into Chloe’s and Chloe grips it like a vice.

Aubrey leans her head on Chloe’s shoulder. “Does she…” She pauses to take a breath. “Do you love each other?”

Chloe’s only response is a whimper.

Aubrey doesn’t ask again.

~~

That night, Chloe cries. She cries a lot.

She’s supposed to move out of the Bella’s house in two days. She should really be there, spending time with the other girls, soaking in her final few moments of college freedom and sisterhood before she has to say goodbye.

But instead, she stays on Aubrey’s couch until the last possible second, curled into a ball, feeling sorry for herself, and crying.

She cries a lot.

Aubrey, surprisingly, doesn’t yell at her. (She really expected to be yelled at.)

She doesn’t yell, but Aubrey’s angry disapproval still seeps into all of their interactions.

There are a lot of moments of quiet looks, of Aubrey’s eyes tightening and her nostrils flaring. There are moments when Chloe looks up and catches Aubrey watching her, expression carefully blank. A few times, Aubrey starts to give her a stern talking-to before Chloe’s eyes fill with tears and Aubrey lets her heated words die on the tip of her tongue.

There are a lot of other moments, too. Moments where Aubrey sits nestled into Chloe’s side, moments where she slips up behind her and wraps her arms tight around Chloe’s middle and holds her while she shakes. There are soft smiles, and warm cups of tea. They share more than a few drinks.

For the most part, from what Chloe can tell, Aubrey’s angriest that Chloe didn’t tell her, that Chloe felt like she _couldn’t_ tell her, that Chloe didn’t _trust_ her. She isn’t really angry about the cheating thing.

(She _is_ angry about the cheating thing, but not as much as Chloe might have expected. She’s still _talking_ to her, so… so that’s a bonus.)

Chloe thinks that it might have to do with the fact that Aubrey has never _really_ liked Jesse very much at all. She isn’t sure if that’s comforting or not, but she tries not to dwell.

**

It couldn’t last. She knew it couldn’t.

The fact that they made it four years is honestly a miracle in and of itself.

It couldn’t last, but Chloe always just sort of assumed that they would fizzle out and die at some point. She sort of assumed that they would move away, that she would graduate, that at one point they’d stop feeling any kind of sexual pull towards each other and they’d just fall back into friendship and forget it ever happened. She sort of assumed that Beca would end it, would tell her that she really loved Jesse and she’d had enough of this, or that Chloe herself would finally get her head out of her ass and stop with all of the self-destructive behavior.

She always knew it couldn’t last.

But she never thought it would all blow up in their faces.

She never thought Beca would _tell him_.

**

Beca and Chloe haven’t spoken in two weeks, and it’s gotten to the point where Chloe’s half-convinced that she’ll never see her again, half-convinced that this is Beca’s way of telling her that whatever they’ve been doing for these last four years (fuck, it’s been _four years_ ) is over, now. That she’s done with her. They haven’t spoken in two weeks and Chloe legitimately thinks they might never speak again.

Beca is terrible with feelings; she’s terrible with confrontation. It took her _months_ to tell Chloe that she’d landed her dream internship (like Chloe would have been _mad_ at her, or something) and that was something that didn’t even really _matter_ all that much.

Beca is terrible at feelings and she’s terrible at communication and so when she stops responding to Chloe’s texts, Chloe thinks she understands what’s going on.

She can take a hint.

So Chloe stops texting, stops reaching out, doesn’t try to call, and waits for Beca to contact her.

It doesn’t happen.

Chloe gets it. She can take a hint. Those two nights on Aubrey’s couch only solidify things for her.

She makes up her mind. Finally, four years down the line, Chloe makes a decision.

She’s done. She’s done with this bullshit. If Beca doesn’t want to talk to her, that’s fine. Chloe’s done doing the work for both of them. If Beca doesn’t want to address their problems, that’s fine. Chloe’s not going to force her. If Beca doesn’t want to pick between her or Jesse, that’s fine. Chloe isn’t going to demand answers.

But she’s done.

She’s done being a mistress, done being Beca’s bed warmer, done being the friend she gets to walk all over and take advantage of.

The longer Beca goes without contacting her, the more time passes between when they last spoke, the deeper Chloe’s anger reaches and the firmer she becomes in her decision. Her fingers twitch and she grinds her teeth and she knows. She knows.

She’s done.

**

Eventually she has to go back to the Bellas’ house — they all do, really — because graduation was a week ago and they all have to get their stuff out and leave the keys for Emily.

It’s bittersweet.

When Chloe gets to the house the first thing she does is head Beca’s room.

She hears sounds of boxes scraping across the floor and clothes being thrown across the room and her heart stutters in her chest. Beca can’t ignore her if they meet face to face, she’s sure of it.

She’s run over this conversation in her head probably 45 times in the past 24 hours. She knows everything she wants to say, has every grievance ready to lay out in front of her, has 4 years of anger and resentment and hurt and guilt building up pressure behind her eyes.

She opens the door, heated words already forming on her tongue, but Beca isn’t there.

Amy, who had been wrestling to close an over-packed suitcase, grins at her instead.

“Chloe!” She exclaims, standing from the bag she’s been trying to force shut. It springs open as soon as her body leaves it, clothes exploding over the already messy floor like a bomb going off. She looks back at it and sighs. “I swear it keeps getting smaller,” she mutters.

Chloe looks around the room. She hasn’t been back to the house in almost a week, and hasn’t seen Beca in nearly two, and what she sees—

“Beca already packed all of her things,” Amy says, her back to Chloe as she tackles her bag once more, “in case you were wondering.”

“She did?” Chloe’s heart is in her throat. “Why?”

Amy shrugs. “She said something about hating goodbyes? I don’t know. I told her that if she didn’t come hug Legacy, at least, that we’d all beat her up.” She’s lying on the floor now, suitcase smashed under her body as she looks over her shoulder at Chloe. “I don’t know if she did or not, but I came back one night and all of her things were gone.” She’s a little breathless, and she stops wiggling long enough to rotate, spinning on the luggage like a human Lazy Susan. She looks at Chloe with an unreadable expression. “She didn’t tell you?”

Chloe’s throat is dry and her face is numb and she doesn’t think she can really talk at the moment, so she just shakes her head.

“Did you two break up, or something?”

Chloe’s eyes widen. “ _What_?” She hisses.

But before Amy can answer her, a loud commotion begins downstairs. It sounds like things slamming, like doors smacking against wood, like footsteps stomping, like raised voices and more than one Bella talking loudly overtop of another.

Chloe rushes out of the room, half-expecting to see Beca in the doorway or in the kitchen, swarmed by her teammates and friends.

But it isn’t Beca.

When Chloe gets to the bottom of the stairs, she freezes where she stands.

Jesse is in the kitchen. He’s in the kitchen, and Beca isn’t with him. He’s in the kitchen, and his clothes look disheveled and messy, his hair unkempt, his eyes bloodshot with heavy dark bags below them, like he hasn’t slept in days.

Chloe’s hand clutches the banister behind her and she knows, she just _knows_ , that he’s here to see her.

Stacie and Jessica and Cynthia Rose are all standing sort-of-near and sort-of-not-near Jesse, forming a shield between him and the rest of the house, like a bunch of animal trainers working to back a rampaging elephant into a corner before it steps on the zoo guests.

Stacie is currently talking to him in a low voice, her hand outstretched like she’s trying to soothe and not startle him. “Jesse, man, why don’t we talk about this,” she says as she inches towards him.

His eyes are wild in his head as he watches the three of them, trying to figure out if he should let them approach or make a break for it.

Chloe can see — out of the corner of her eye — the rest of the Bellas sneaking into peripheral rooms. Amy loiters on top of the stairs, Emily perches in the family room clutching a couch cushion to her chest, Flo and Ashley and Lily all hover in the hallway behind the kitchen, looking unsure of what to do.

Jesse, apparently sensing that he’s outnumbered, looks around him frantically.

His eyes meet Chloe’s, and Chloe swears she can feel her heart fall out of her stomach.

He looks angry. He looks _so_ angry. His eyes meet hers and his face starts to get redder and redder and Chloe feels panic grip her and she wants to back up, she wants to turn up the stairs and flee, but she’s stuck where she stands, unable to move.

She’s pretty sure that this is how she’s going to die.

Suddenly, Jesse breaks away. He moves faster than anyone expects him to. He’s exhausted, so tired he can barely keep his eyes open, but almost before Chloe can blink he slips, dives under Stacie’s arm, vaults over the island, and just like that he’s right in front of her.

Chloe takes several rapid steps backward, stumbling a little over her own two feet, until her back crashes into what she thinks is the front door.

She sees the other Bellas all rush towards her — women desperate to protect other women from harm — but she sticks out a hand, stopping them.

She’s not sure why. She’s not sure why she’s telling them to stop, to not come to her aid, to back off and stay where they are.

Maybe it’s because after four years of purgatory, she’s _desperate_ for someone to actually acknowledge what’s going on. Maybe it’s because Beca isn’t here, because she’s angry and vindictive, because she’s gone a little crazy with her old age. Maybe it’s because after four years of sleeping with his girlfriend behind his back, Chloe _really_ feels like Jesse needs this.

Maybe it’s because she thinks she deserves it.

He stops in front of her, crowding her space, looming over her and Chloe _tries_ not to shrink, tries not to feel small, but when he puts a hand next to her head, bracing himself against the door behind her, Chloe finds that it’s pretty difficult to feel brave.

(She’s never been _afraid_ of Jesse before.)

He stares at her, and Chloe does her best to keep eye contact with him.

She stares into his eyes and she sees, for the first time, that it isn’t _anger_ she thought she was looking at — it’s devastation.

He looks down at her with eyes that scream of pain and heartbreak and disbelief.

“How long?” He asks (whispers). Chloe swallows. “She told me, Chloe,” he says quietly. Not quiet enough. She knows everyone around them can hear him. The house is so, _so_ quiet, there’s no way they can’t hear him. “She told me you’re _fucking her_ ,” he spits the words and Chloe wants to recoil from the violence of them, but she’s trapped between his body and the door and she can’t move any further from him without melting through the wood. “So tell me—” he says, leaning his head down and closer to hers, their foreheads almost touching— “How. Long.”

Chloe swallows again and breaks eye contact, looking down. She doesn’t answer. She’s not sure she _can_. “Jesse,” she says quietly, “I—”

“How long?!” He screams, hard enough to sound like he’s tearing his own vocal chords, hard enough to make Chloe inhale and wince and turn her head to the side, eyes screwed shut in preparation. She thinks he might hit her. She’s not sure she would really be that upset if she did. “HOW LONG?!” He shouts louder, slamming his fist into the wall next to her head again and again and again and again.

It rattles the door on its hinges. The wood bounces against Chloe’s head, and she thinks this would be a very fitting way to die — bludgeoned to death by the spurned boyfriend of the girl she loves. Very poetic. Very much inspired by Russian literature.

Chloe can’t breathe. She can’t breathe and she can’t look at him and she wants to be brave but she also wants her body to collapse in on itself, she wants to sink into the floor, she wants to disappear, to vanish where she stands. She wants the ground to open up and swallow her into Hell.

She would deserve it.

But as Jesse’s fist comes down against the door next to her head again and again and again, all she realistically hopes is that he doesn’t hit her in front of Emily. The kid doesn’t need to see that.

His body disappears from in front of her. When Chloe turns, she sees that Cynthia Rose has him in a nelson hold, with both of her arms encircled around his under the armpit, secured at his neck. She’s muttering quietly into his ear, her grip tight to keep him from twisting away.

_But she shouldn’t worry,_ Chloe thinks. _Jesse wouldn’t try to break free_.

“How long, Chloe!? Tell me how long!” His voice is no less intense, no less desperate, but it’s quieter, now. With each word that comes out of his mouth he seems to deflate, to lose energy; his shoulders buckle and he falls forward, only held up by Cynthia Rose’s strong arms. He looks exhausted.

She can see his tears drying against his cheeks.

She’s crying, too.

“Please,” he says, sobs into the empty space between them, his hands falling uselessly to his sides. Chloe doesn’t move.

Cynthia slowly, almost reluctantly, loosens her grip. Jesse takes a few unsteady steps forward, collapsing against the door next to her, his shoulder to hers, his body flush to her side.

Chloe lets him lean against her, lets herself support him like she thinks he needs. With his body pressed to hers, with the heavy weight of him against her, she almost feels perversely comforted.

(It’s probably the last time he’ll ever touch her.)

Chloe knows that nothing about their current situation should comfort her. She understands that nothing about her interactions with Jesse should ever have been anything less than shameful and guilt-ridden. But they had been friends, once. She thinks they honestly had been friends.

But friends don’t do this to each other. Friends don’t… don’t inflict this kind of pain.

(If they had ever been friends, they certainly weren’t anymore.)

“Please tell me,” his voice is a whisper and Chloe _wants_ to tell him. She wants to break down and tell him _everything_ , but her words are caught in her throat, trapped, and she can’t get them out because in four years she’s never spoken about this with _anyone_ (except Aubrey, very briefly), never said the words out _loud_ or acknowledged them fully, and she’s honestly half-convinced that she _can’t_ say them. She thinks that after all this time she’s forgotten what they sound like.

She wants to tell him but she doesn’t think she can because she thinks she’s forgotten how to say the words ‘four year-long affair’ because she’s never said them in her life.

She’s not sure she can start now.

“Four years,” a voice says from behind them, and Jesse pulls away from her slowly, like he’s pulling himself out of a swamp.

He turns away from Chloe, and Chloe opens her eyes but immediately wishes she hadn’t.

All of the Bellas are watching them, staring at them, and Chloe feels like she’s living under a microscope. Some of them (Stacie, Cynthia Rose) clutch items in their hands like weapons, ready to fight Jesse if they need to. Some of them (Lily, Jessica) have completely disappeared. Some of them (Emily, just Emily), have tears streaming down their faces while they clutch pillows like they aren’t sure what to do.

Chloe looks at Emily and immediately regrets every single thing she’s done over the past four years that’s led them to this moment and this situation.

( _The kid never deserved this_.)

“What?” Jesse asks, his shoulders as low as Chloe’s ever seen them. He’s looking at Amy, where she still stands on the upper landing. She’s leaning against the wall, her expression neutral, and Chloe’s stomach clenches and she feels like throwing up.

“Four years,” Amy says again, but she isn’t looking at Jesse — she’s looking at Chloe’s cowering form behind him.

(Chloe’s crying. She’s not sure when she started but at this point she doesn’t think she’ll ever stop.)

“What, did you seriously think _none_ of us would figure it out?” She asks, and Chloe’s never really heard her voice sound _scathing_ before, but if she could that’s how she would describe it now.

Chloe looks around at the other Bellas. Emily, she knows, already knew about them. It’s the others she looks at.

Flo and Ashley, at least, look completely shocked. Lily and Jessica are nowhere to be seen, so Chloe will have to imagine their faces. But the others? Amy and Cynthia Rose and Stacie? They don’t look surprised in the slightest. The don’t look angry (save for Amy), but they don’t look surprised. Stacie and Cynthia are watching her carefully, their faces noticeably absent of any emotion, and Chloe really should have guessed this. She really should have known. She really shouldn’t have assumed that they were getting away with their affair when they shared a house with some of the nosiest women Chloe’s ever met in her entire life.

She lets her head fall back against the door and tries to breathe.

She’s pretty sure this is how she’s going to die.

“Four… four _years_?” Jesse asks, dumbstruck, and Chloe blinks because she had almost forgotten he was here.

He turns to look at Chloe, eyes wide and searching, but she can’t keep eye contact with him.

“Four years?” He asks again, whispering.

Chloe swallows thickly, shuts her eyes, and nods.

Jesse whimpers and sinks to the floor.

Chloe wants to throw up.

The sound of hurried, rushed footsteps, and then Beca comes stumbling into the kitchen, the back door banging open behind her as it smacks against she wall. She’s trailed by an anxious Jessica and Lily, who keep looking around like they aren’t sure if they’ve made a mistake or not.

_So that’s where they went,_ Chloe thinks, her own thoughts dull and sluggish.

“Jesse,” Beca hisses almost breathlessly, but her eyes are trained on Chloe even as she addresses him, “what are you doing here?”

Beca. Because that’s exactly who needed to show up, right now.

Chloe knows she’s still crying, but for some sick reason she doesn’t want Beca to see, so she turns her head and looks away.

Beca takes a few steps through the kitchen, her shoes squeaking against the bare linoleum, echoing in the quiet house.

Jesse sits on the ground, his knees curled to his chest, his face buried in the fabric of his jeans.

Chloe can’t look at him.

She thinks she’s going to be sick.

“Jesse,” Beca tries again, imploring.

He doesn’t bring his head out from between his legs, so when he speaks his voice is muffled. “Four years, Beca?” He says, not quite like an accusation but not quite like a question.

Chloe can feel Beca’s eyes snap to her face, burning a hole in the side of her head.

“You…” She splutters, “but how did… you…”

“I didn’t tell him,” Chloe whispers, because she _knows_ Beca is going to blame her, _knows_ Beca is going to think that this is her fault, and she’s desperate ( _fuck_ , even now she’s desperate) for Beca to trust her and for Beca not to hate her.

It’s sick. This whole thing is sick. Chloe’s in way over her head and her dependence on this girl is unhealthy and the whole thing is fucking sick.

Chloe’s going to be sick.

“ _I_ told him,” Amy says from up the stairs and from her periphery Chloe can see Beca jump at the unexpected noise.

“You…” She continues to stammer, looking around the house. “But how…?”

“I’ve been your roommate for _two years_ , Beca. How could I _not_ know?”

“I…”

Chloe thinks she would almost feel bad for the fact that Beca’s world is so obviously crumbling around her, thinks she would almost feel bad for the way Beca’s heart must be pounding, stomach tight with fear.

She thinks she would almost feel bad about it all, if she wasn’t so busy feeling absolutely lousy for herself.

“The whole time, Beca?” Jesse asks, and he’s shrunk in on himself so much that he looks almost like a little boy, curled and tucked into clothes many sizes too big for him.

Chloe can’t believe what she’s done.

She really doesn’t want to be here, anymore.

“The whole time?” He asks, this time bringing his head up, eyes bright and red-rimmed and face unapologetic in its demented sorrow.

“I…” Beca looks to Chloe. Chloe thinks she should look away but she can’t, so she just holds Beca’s eyes as tears continue to slide down her face.

Beca finally slumps. “Yeah,” she whispers, still keeping eye contact with Chloe. “The whole time.”

Chloe looks up, eyes narrowing in on the bright light fixture directly above her head, hoping that if she stares at it long enough she might go blind.

“The whole time,” Jesse echoes like a broken doll. He shakes his head. “Did you ever… was any of it real? Did you ever love me?”

Chloe really wishes she could go blind now, please. Blind and maybe deaf.

“I… _yes_ , Jesse. How could you even ask that?”

Chloe isn’t looking at them but she imagines that probably wasn’t the answer Jesse was hoping to hear. “I wanted…” his voice is quiet, and it’s so _absurd_ that he’s currently sitting on their house floor, wrapped in on himself, on the worst day of his life. It’s absolutely absurd that this is the situation they’re all in. It’s _absurd_. “I thought you were it, Becs,” he says. “I wanted to _marry_ you.”

Chloe has to leave. She has to leave right now.

But her feet are glued in place and she can’t move.

“I… Jesse I’m so sorry. I loved you, I really did—”

“Do you love _her_?” He asks, gesturing towards Chloe with his chin.

She really has to leave. She has to leave right now. She can’t be here, she can’t listen to this, she can’t hear what Beca has to say.

Either way it will destroy her. Either Beca will say that she loves Chloe, that she’s loved Chloe for a long time, or she’ll say that she never loved Chloe at all.

She can’t bear either answer.

Either Beca has loved her and continued to string her along, toying with her, being with a man she doesn’t truly love and sneaking around behind his back to be with Chloe like it doesn’t have any impact on her, like it doesn’t completely destroy her every time it happens. Either that, or Chloe was a willing participant in a one-sided affair that completely destroyed a relationship, and it was all for nothing. Either that, or Chloe has been in love with someone who couldn’t care less about her for more than three years.

Either way, she can’t hear what Beca has to say.

She pulls open the front door, walks down the lawn, and leaves.

She doesn’t hear Beca’s answer.

She doesn’t look back.

No one chases her.

**


	6. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When she’s on that stage, performing for all those people… when she starts to sing that song… something grips her. She feels this pull, this swell of romantic energy like she’s in the midst of a goddamn fairytale, and then she just…_
> 
> _Well, does she have any choice in the matter, really?_
> 
> _(He’s the acapella boy and she’s the acapella girl. This is their story.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is something you all have been asking for for a really long time. I hadn’t originally planned on writing anything like this, because I intended the entire story to be from Chloe’s point of view, but I’ve been getting so many questions and pleas for Beca’s side of things that I thought… well, why not?
> 
> Also, you might have noticed I’ve changed the number of chapters on this. Six just wasn’t enough, in the end. I have nine planned, so hopefully it’ll stay like that. 
> 
> Enjoy this brief interlude while I work on finishing up this story.
> 
> As always, if you want to dish or talk/yell at me, feel free to follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/).

**

The first time it happens, Beca knows it’s a mistake. They barely know each other. They’re practically strangers. She and Chloe are teammates, nothing more. (They can’t be anything more.) Besides, it’s like her _second_ week at college, she’s not about to go fall in love and start some crazy whirlwind relationship with the first cute girl she meets at a new school. She’s not _psychotic_. She’s not some naïve ingénue looking to be whisked away into the dark and mysterious world of college lesbian affairs.

They hooked up. Once. It doesn’t have to mean anything.

Besides, Chloe never mentions it.

She was drunk that night. Pretty visibly drunk, while Beca herself was nearly stone cold sober. And she _knows_ there are all these rules about consent and not having sex with someone when they’re too intoxicated, but Chloe had practically _leapt_ on her, practically _dragged_ her to bed. And she’s _beautiful_ and the fact that she’s seemingly a little interested in Beca is _flattering_ and… well, what was she supposed to do?

She leaves Chloe alone a little after four in the morning. Fills up a cup of water and slips a bottle of Advil onto the bedside table and scurries back to her room where a disgruntled Kimmy Jin glares and grumbles and mutters about “white people not respecting the rules of common courtesy” or something like that. Beca doesn’t really listen to her.

She’s not sure why she leaves. To give Chloe an out, maybe? She’s a freshman, it’s her second week on campus, Chloe’s graduating in the spring… there’s like… _no way_ she’d want to date someone like Beca. They’re in such different places in life, such different situations, plus the age difference on top of it all…

It was all probably just a dumb, stupid mistake. Just an accident. Just a drunken hookup. And besides, Aubrey has all these rules about fraternizing with the enemy and ‘not boning a Treble,’ surely she’d go _ape shit_ if she heard that Beca and Chloe have had sex.

They go through an entire week of perfectly normal interactions, and Chloe never mentions it. She _was_ pretty drunk, so maybe… there’s a chance she doesn’t remember? Could she not remember it happening? Or maybe she remembers but just doesn’t care? Chloe’s the kind of girl who hops out of showering with a guy to a complete stranger’s shower without so much as blinking. So maybe hookups like these are par for the course, with her.

Either way, she doesn’t mention it.

Which okay, sure. Fine. Makes sense. Beca gets the rules; she can play this game, too.

Everything back to normal. Everything just the way it once was; just the way it always should have been. She can do that. One slightly-ill-advised hookup shouldn’t change the course of her entire college career after all.

Right?

**

Beca thinks it’s going to be a one-off thing. Which is kind of disappointing, if she’s being honest, because Chloe is hot and funny and amazing and beautiful and she gasps out breathy moans into Beca’s ear when Beca slips inside of her, her thighs clench and shake around her ears when Beca’s tongue makes contact with her clit. Chloe’s entire body is responsive to even the smallest of touches. One quick pinch to her nipple and she arches and shudders and grips Beca’s arm tighter and kisses her like she’s running out of air.

That kind of shit can get addictive, and fast. That’s the kind of shit that you think about late at night, alone in your bed, eyes closed and lip clenched between your teeth. That’s the kind of shit that makes you fight down a blush every time you look at each other across a room, that makes you lose focus any time your eyes wander down to her lips.

So, if she’s being honest, Beca is kind of disappointed that it looks like this is going to be a one-off thing. But she gets it, she understands. It was one hookup. She and Chloe are friends, now; honest-to-God friends. They share jokes; trade meaningful looks whenever Aubrey says something ridiculous; Chloe slips an arm through hers when they walk to lunch together every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; Beca’s started to learn Chloe’s Starbucks order (tea with honey — because coffee and milk are bad for the voice — but you can pry Beca’s coffee out of her cold, dead hands, thank you very much); Chloe has met her parents; and they sometimes meet for study sessions in the library.

So, friends. She can do friends. Being friends is easy.

**

It doesn’t happen again for months, but it _does_ happen again.

Beca’s a little drunk, a little reckless, they’re at a frat party surrounded by anonymous faces and pressing bodies, and well…

Shit happens.

**

She’s been spending a lot of time with Jesse, recently. He’s nice enough, she supposes. A little abrasive, sometimes. She’s not sure she loves how he shouts, “C’mon, you’ve _never_ seen ____?” every time she tells him that no, she _hasn’t_ seen another one of his ‘favorite movies of all time,’ because she doesn’t _like_ movies and hasn’t really seen _any_ of them and she’s pretty sure she’s mentioned this before so how can he possibly be surprised when it’s revealed once again that yes, Beca doesn’t really know _anything_ about movies thanks for bringing it up, Jesse.

But he’s nice. Cute. He makes popcorn and curls up under plush blankets with her, and he’s warm and solid against her side, and he pulls faces at her while they’re stacking music at the radio station and he throws knowing looks across dark acapella events and he smiles when she cracks jokes and his eyes are big and wide and sincere.

He’s cute, and she thinks he’s starting to grow on her. She thinks she’s actually starting to like him, starting to find his quirks a little charming.

But the best part about it? She knows he’s _actually_ into her.

That’s more than she can say about Chloe.

Chloe, who shoots her weird looks whenever she shows up somewhere with Jesse. Chloe, who keeps finding reasons to duck out of the room whenever Jesse walks in.

Beca’s not sure what it means, but she knows it makes her feel uncomfortably guilty.

She hates it. Considers ditching this thing with Jesse completely, just to make sure that weird little pained look never shows up on Chloe’s face again.

She tries to talk about it with her, once. Tries to broach the subject.

But Chloe brushes her off. “Aubrey’s insane for making that rule, Becs,” she says with a flip of her hair that has Beca’s heart stuttering. “You can date whoever you like.”

Beca’s not sure if that’s Chloe’s way of urging her into this thing with Jesse, but, well… it’s definitely urging her into _something_.

She’s not sure it’s exactly what she wants to hear, but… whatever. She’s only hooked up with Chloe twice. And Jesse is a nice guy.

If Aubrey doesn’t murder her first, she might even consider dating him.

**

She kisses him. She’s not even entirely sure _why_ , but she kisses him. She’s been spending so much time with him, and he’s _cute_ , she supposes. He’s cute and he’s nice and funny and he has weird taste in music and he forces her to watch shitty movies, but watching a movie isn’t all that terrible when you have someone to provide snarky commentary to, when you have someone else to make the popcorn.

She works “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” into their set not really _because_ of Jesse. Maybe inspired by him, in some ways? But not… she’s spent the past _month_ watching as many movies as Jesse can force her into watching. Some of it’s _bound_ to seep over into her acapella life. That’s just the way these things go.

But when she’s on that stage, performing for all those people… when she starts to sing that song, especially in the wake of their fight… something grips her. She feels this pull, this swell of romantic energy like she’s in the midst of a goddamn fairytale, and then she just…

Well, does she have any choice in the matter, really?

(He’s the acapella boy and she’s the acapella girl. This is their story.)

Besides, even though she’s fucked Chloe three times at this point, the other girl seems almost unconquerably determined to keep every facet of their relationship entirely platonic; at least to outside viewers. It hurts, but Beca gets it. Like Stacie says: sometimes you just need a warm body. And Beca doesn’t _mind_ being that warm body for Chloe. Not if that’s what she needs.

(Better her than that dickhead Tom. She can’t stand that guy.)

Besides, Chloe’s graduating at the end of this year. She can’t very well pursue a relationship with someone just leaving college, not as she’s just starting it. Relationships like that just never work out.

Still, after they win ICCAs, after Jesse leaves the after party with a shy parting kiss to her cheek, Beca lets Chloe grab her hand and pull her into a bathroom. She laughs when Chloe kisses her; laughs because she’s giddy and euphoric coming off of their victory; laughs because she’s probably a little drunk; laughs because she doesn’t know what she’s doing; laughs because she might be starting a relationship with Jesse soon, and she has no idea how that’s going to go; laughs because Chloe is graduating, Chloe is leaving, and this might be their last chance, and the thought of that is maybe a little tragically hilarious — like some sort of sick irony.

She and Jesse have only kissed like… three times total. They’re not even _dating_ yet. They haven’t even had a conversation about it, haven’t talked about what they are or what it means or what they’re going to do over the summer or when they come back to Barden next year.

It isn’t cheating. Beca doesn’t have a boyfriend and Chloe isn’t dating anyone so they can’t be cheating because they have no one to cheat _on_.

They aren’t cheating.

**

Chloe doesn’t graduate in the spring.

Beca feels a little pang of regret, a little twinge of some feeling of _why me why now,_ but she’s already kind of seeing Jesse, so… She can’t just break up with him. She and Chloe have never even spoken about the four odd times they’ve hooked up. Had sex. Fucked. Whatever.

It’s nothing serious. If it was something serious, Chloe would have said something.

She can’t break up with Jesse. Not that there’s really anything to ‘break up,’ per se. They aren’t even really _committed_ , yet. Most of their relationship has been long-distance texts and late-night Skype calls to watch some movie he’s appalled she’s never seen before. This thing with Jesse is still so new — barely three months old — and, truthfully, it likely won’t last. Beca’s not really a relationship type of person. (Chloe isn’t either, from what she’s observed.)

But, look: she has no idea what Chloe’s been feeling or what Chloe’s situation is now that she’s back for a fifth year, and what’s the harm really in testing out the waters with Jesse, for a while? Seeing where things go once they get back to school and are in the same place again?

She can’t just _break up_ with Jesse for something that may turn out to be nothing.

Right?

**

Dunk Chloe is handsy. Drunk Chloe is overly affectionate. Drunk Chloe likes to grind on her friends and make out with strangers and drunk Chloe likes to drag Beca behind the outdoor amphitheater at aca-initiation night and moan her name loud enough that Beca has to hold a hand over her mouth so no one comes looking for them and—

When it’s over, they straighten their clothes and rejoin the party. And look, Beca _wants_ to say something. She really does. And either way, she thinks she _should_ say something about all of this.

She has Chloe clouding all of her senses, the taste of Chloe in her mouth, Chloe on her fingers, and she thinks, _Fuck, this thing with Jesse is so_ new. _It’s barely been three months._ The truth of the matter is, one word from Chloe and Beca would break up with him as fast as humanly possible without hurting him too badly.

And he would understand, too! That’s the crazy thing about it all! He’s a really, _really_ good guy. If she wanted to break up with him to try shit out with Chloe, she’s _sure_ he would be fully supportive.

But Jesse finds them soon, too soon, and he throws his arm around her shoulder and kisses the side of her head and Beca tries to dodge away from him, tries to pull Chloe aside to have a conversation, but Chloe won’t look at her and Chloe disappears from the party almost instantly, scurrying up the stone steps without even glancing behind her.

Beca feels the sting of rejection acutely.

(She understands that this is the kind of person Chloe is: free with her feelings and free with affection and proud of her sexuality and open to flings and romances of any duration with anyone of any race, gender, or ethnicity. Chloe has a million feelings, all of them strong, most of them positive. She gets drawn to people easily and quickly; when she loves someone she loves them with everything she has.)

(Beca understands that this is the kind of person Chloe is.)

(But she can’t help but feel a little bit used.)

**

Chloe won’t talk about it. She won’t. She won’t talk about it, won’t mention it, will barely even look Beca in the eyes when they’re alone together.

Whenever Chloe _does_ look at her, it’s with eyes full of lust and longing and desire, and Beca is fucking _helpless_ to say no.

**

Shit with Jesse is… it’s weird? She thinks it might be a little weird?

He’s super nice and all, always bringing her flowers and snacks while she’s at work, always respecting her wishes to go to bed early on nights before she has exams, always trying to tailor their movie selections to titles similar to things she’s begrudgingly admitted she likes. He’s super nice, but… she’s not sure. It’s just a little weird.

Like, she _likes_ him. She definitely likes him. He’s sweet and he makes her laugh and his kisses are soft and he likes to buy her dinner and her dad loves him and the Bellas and the Trebles have never gotten along better. But also, he calls himself her boyfriend but doesn’t call her his girlfriend, so… there’s that. (Which is it weird that he does that? She thinks it might be weird, but she _also_ knows he’s doing it because the one time he called her his girlfriend she flinched and recoiled from the word and started babbling on about ‘commitment’ and ‘exclusivity’ and ‘not being sure’ so he let it drop. Which, again, is _super_ nice of him.)

She likes him, for sure. There’s just… no passion there? She doesn’t really feel a strong passion with him.

But maybe that’s normal. Maybe that’s how relationships are supposed to be. She wouldn’t know, she’s never been in one. She’s never dated someone longer than a couple months; never been serious with someone; never been in love. She’s not sure what it’s supposed to feel like.

Not everything can be that raw, animalistic sort of attraction that sparks between her and Chloe.

Maybe that’s why all they do is hook up. They’re really, _really_ good friends at this point — like, Chloe might be her _best friend_ — so of course a relationship dynamic would be weird between them. That makes sense, she thinks.

So, she likes Jesse. And yeah, things are a little weird, but what new relationship isn’t a little weird, at the beginning?

If only she could get Chloe out of her damn head, maybe she could finally start focusing on Jesse like he deserves.

**

They haven’t had sex yet. They’ve been dating six months but they haven’t had sex yet.

And it’s all on her; she knows it is. She’s the one who stops every advance, who feigns exhaustion, who cuts off make out sessions right before clothes start coming off.

It isn’t fair to have sex with him. Not while…

There’s still all this stuff with Chloe going on, all this stuff fucking with her head, and if she sleeps with Jesse while she’s still… while she and Chloe are still…

It isn’t fair to him.

Maybe if she doesn’t sleep with him, she can pretend the whole situation isn’t as bad as she knows it is.

**

Chloe is seeing other people. Beca knows she is. There was that guy at that toga party, and that girl from her art class, and Beca’s found all sorts of articles of clothing littered around Chloe’s room that _certainly_ don’t belong to her.

So, Chloe’s seeing other people. And Beca… Beca has Jesse. Kind of. She thinks.

She understands she can’t be hurt, can’t be stung by this information. That’s not allowed, nor is it very fair. She understands that she can’t be jealous.

What they have isn’t serious. It’s barely even _something,_ barely even a thing to have. It’s just… drunken hookups and relieving stress and moments of happenstance that turn into…

Look, Beca isn’t jealous. That would be hypocritical. She _knows_ she can’t be jealous.

But understanding something and actually feeling that way are two very different things.

**

She likes Jesse. She really, _really_ likes Jesse.

And yeah, maybe she doesn’t feel an intense sort of passion with him, but he’s cute and he smiles at her so sweetly and she just…

He never pressures her. They’re going on seven months together _(Fuck, has it really been that long?)_ and he never pressures her into doing _anything_ she doesn’t want to do. But she… look, she likes Jesse _a lot_. And she’s almost twenty and she shouldn’t feel bad for having sex or wanting to have sex with the guy she’s dating and—

(Look, Chloe is seeing other people, too. Chloe is having sex with other people.)

_(Why does that even matter?)_

It’s not about “perfect timing” or “waiting for the right moment” or “getting back at someone” or anything like that. It just happens. They’re kissing and hands are roaming and she doesn’t see any reason to stop it and…

Jesse’s super nice the whole time — he’s _always_ nice; it’s kind of an annoying constant of his — and he’s super gentle and he keeps stopping to ask how she’s doing and if she’s okay with what’s happening, which again is a _super_ nice gesture (a little unnecessary, maybe? It’s not like she’s never had sex before, and he definitely knows that) and it just…

It just kinda happens?

**

Beca’s been having nightmares. Terrible dreams where Jesse walks in on her kissing Chloe (just _kissing_ her, God, not even anything that nuts) and then he starts screaming at her and crying and Beca scrambles after him but her feet are sinking, sinking through the floor and she can’t run and she tries to yell out for him but there’s something caught around her neck and when she looks down the bed sheets are strangling her, pulling her back, choking the air out of her and she can’t breathe, and when she starts to fall she tilts her head and sees Chloe with the sheets curled in both her fists, drawing her back back back back with a vicious smile and eyes that flash the wrong color.

She wakes up in a cold sweat.

She’s been having trouble sleeping.

**

Chloe knows she’s dating Jesse. She knows Beca has a boyfriend.

She _knows_.

But she sends Beca a picture of her without a shirt on, sends her pictures of her hand between her legs, of her pinching her own nipple, of wet fingers, and she…

They don’t talk about him when they’re alone. But, _fuck_ , it’s like any tiny hint of him and Chloe turns into a completely different person. She fucks Beca before she’s supposed to go and meet him at a party, fucks her before they go to joint-acapella events. One time Jesse calls her while Chloe is on top of her, Beca’s nipple in her mouth, and Beca’s heart had stuttered and thumped with pure terror while she scrambled to silence her phone. But Chloe had just pinned her down on the bed and ground against her furiously while the phone rang and rang and rang next to Beca’s head. And fuck, the sex had been _amazing_ but it left Beca sick to her stomach, left her with this heavy feeling of dread, because it was almost _cruel_ of Chloe, almost _evil_ , and it had left Beca feeling nauseous and uncomfortable and she fucking _hated_ it.

It should have been easy to stop, after that. It should have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. If Beca had possessed anything resembling a backbone, it probably would have been.

But it just…

Look, Chloe _knows_ Beca has a boyfriend.

So what the fuck is she playing at?

**

Weirdly, with the sexting, it kind of gets easier. Because it’s not like… it’s not like actual, _physical_ sex as much. It’s just like… it’s pictures and videos and words. It’s like fantasizing, you know? Like a fantasy.

It’s, like… look it isn’t perfect, and Beca’s not going to lie and say that she knows it’s right or innocent or _okay_ to be doing this, but it…

Like… it could be worse? Maybe?

(It probably couldn’t be any worse.)

**

She calls her one night over the summer.

She’s interning in LA for some record studio that would never hire her in a million years, but whatever, it’s a _job_ and it’s in LA and it’s vaguely related to what she wants to do with her future career so… you know. It’s a good step.

But it’s far. It’s far from Georgia, far from her parents, far from Barden, far from Jesse. Far from Chloe. It’s so, _so_ far.

She fucking _misses_ Chloe. She misses all of them, all of it, she thinks. But there’s just…

(She misses Chloe. She’s not gonna overthink it. She’s just gonna let herself miss her best friend. It’s not like that’s a fucking crime.)

She’s drunk _a lot_ over the course of that summer (and her body punishes her severely for it), but on this particular night a bunch of fellow interns from the studio have dragged her out to… some sort of club. A few clubs, actually. Beca’s not entirely sure where they go, where they end up, what part of town they’re in. She just lets herself get dragged along because sometimes it’s easier to just follow someone else’s lead, you know? Making plans is so hard. Especially when you’ve been drinking.

It’s just nice to let someone else call the shots.

They keep shoving drinks into her hands and one of them slips her a pill with a pat on the back and a wink and Beca thinks, _Fuck it, you only live once_ , and she takes what she later finds out is MDMA and then the whole fucking club is spinning and the lights are flashing and exploding and everything is incredible and euphoric and her hair feels amazing against her fingertips and the bodies pressed against her feel extraordinary and everything is so big and loud and _nice_.

She fumbles with her phone. Opens the camera to take a picture of the floor because it’s _glowing_ and that’s _cool as shit_ , but she accidentally opens her camera roll instead (because she’s tripping her fucking brains out) and she sees pictures, a few selfies from right after ICCAs, and there’s Chloe’s face, grinning at her with her full Bellas makeup and looking so fucking _beautiful_ and she just…

She calls her. Like a fucking _idiot_. Tells her she _misses_ her, like they’re fucking fifteen or some shit.

She doesn’t remember much of the conversation, but she thinks Chloe is probably super nice to her about it all.

They don’t talk about it, but Beca keeps calling and Chloe keeps answering and...

They don’t talk about it.

**

She’s never been good with long-distance relationships and things with Jesse have been… they’ve been going okay. They’ve actually been going pretty well. But it’s been a year that they’ve been together and Beca’s been wracked and roiled with guilt for almost the entirety of that time, and that’s no way to build a strong relationship with anyone, you know? And it… look, it’s been a year, and that’s _already_ about six times longer than any relationship she’s ever had before, and she’s feeling… well, she’s feeling like they’ve probably run their course. Best to end things now, before it gets too messy. Best to part on good terms and try to remain friends.

But then… then she gets back to school. And things with Jesse are so easy and so uncomplicated and she really does care about him and she doesn’t want to hurt him and she just…

She doesn’t break up with him. She knows she should; knows she probably really wants to.

But Jesse is _easy_. He’s easy and comfortable and comforting and he’s probably her best friend in the entire world, after Chloe, and she thinks that she really does love him, in her own way.

And shit with Chloe is… it’s complicated and it’s messy and it _hurts_ so much of the time. It makes her feel like such shit, and things with Jesse are so much easier, because this shit with Chloe is… It’s rough and angry and take take take and it feels like punishment more often than it doesn’t, and that’s no way to build a relationship. Relationships aren’t built on _that_.

(You also can’t have a relationship with someone while you continuously sleep with someone else behind their back. She’s not an idiot. She knows that, too.)

**

By Beca’s third year at Barden, they have their own house. She’s not sure how Chloe swings it, but they get their own house. Like a sorority, “But with less philanthropy,” Chloe says.

It makes things for Beca and Chloe a lot more convenient.

**

She’s been careful, she’s been so _so_ careful with Chloe. They’re hooking up pretty regularly, but that’s all this is. It’s not like she’s trying to make it a big thing. It just… it just keeps _happening_ , neither of them really _mean_ for it to keep happening. They just can’t seem to stop.

But they don’t talk about it. They don’t kiss or hold hands. They don’t discuss what they’re doing face-to-face. They don’t talk about Jesse. They keep things platonic and professional in front of the other Bellas. They’re both free to see other people. They keep things uncomplicated. Beca doesn’t spend the night.

Those are the rules. They’ve never discussed them, not exactly, but those are definitely, _definitely_ the rules. At least as far as Beca can tell.

So the first time she spends the night in Chloe’s room — not as part of some group-Bellas gathering, that is — she wakes up confused and fucking _terrified_. Because this is… this isn’t part of the rules. It’s not what they _do_ , it isn’t something Chloe’s _asked_ for or _initiated_ , it’s…

She wakes up facing Chloe, blinks her eyes awake in time to catch Chloe stretching and yawning, and she fucking _freezes_. Like a fucking coward. Because she doesn’t… this isn’t…

Chloe smiles at her, easy and relaxed and open, and Beca has to pause and remind herself to breathe because Chloe is so beautiful like this, spread out with her hair kind of messy and her eyes full of sleep and it just—

“So, you crashed here?” Chloe asks, voice light and teasing.

Beca swallows and fights the urge to frown with confusion. She scans her eyes over Chloe’s face, looking for… looking for something, _anything_ to give her a clue as to how she’s supposed to react to this. “It was later than I thought, I guess,” she says quietly. She’s surprised at how thick and rough her voice sounds. She isn’t sure whether it’s from sleep, the party the previous night, or something else, something closer to fear and worry and a desire to please.

Chloe smirks. “Yeah, well we both know you’re one to pass out right after you’ve gotten yours.”

Beca laughs, relief flooding her body. _Ignore it, don’t talk about it._ Okay. This she can do. She’s used to this. “Oh fuck you,” she says, rolling her eyes, “I’ve _never_ passed out.”

“Before last night, you mean?”

And fuck, it almost feels real.

**

Sometimes, she goes to Chloe immediately after she’s been with Jesse.

It isn’t like… it isn’t like he doesn’t _satisfy_ her, or something. It’s not like she’s some insatiable sex fiend who fucks people left right and center because she has no self control, no thought process beyond _want take have_.

It’s just… Jesse’s so soft and gentle, so focused on pleasing her and so focused on consent and so focused on giving her his undivided attention that it makes Beca want to scream. She doesn’t deserve this; she doesn’t deserve this guy who would lay down his life for her. She _doesn’t_ , not at all.

Jesse likes to take things slow, Jesse likes to make it all about the _experience_ , and she just… it gives her so much fucking time to _think_ , so much time to run things through again and again and again in her mind.

It makes her feel queasy. It makes her feel sick. It makes her anxious and she hates it and she hates him for doing it and she hates Chloe for not putting a stop to all of this and she hates herself, most of all.

There’s some things she won’t do. Crazy, how she can think of morality in the midst of all of this, right? Some fucking hypocrisy.

But there’s some things she won’t do; some things she _can’t_ do. If he goes down on her, she can’t stomach the thought of letting Chloe do the same. If he’s been exceedingly gentle with her, it leaves her thrumming with anxious energy and it makes her bones quake in her body and all she can think of doing is _taking_ and _hurting_ and _being hurt_.

If he tells her he loves her during, she asks Chloe to tie her to the bed. To take and take and take from her. To punish her, maybe.

Sometimes she leaves his place and all she can think is what a fucking piece of shit scumbag she is, and she _knows_ it isn’t fair to go to Chloe after something like that and ask for some sort of reprieve, some sort of retribution, but… But Beca’s never lied about the fact that she is an _extraordinarily_ flawed person, never hid the fact that she can be pretty fucking selfish from time to time. She knows it isn’t fair, but she knows she’s weak, too.

She’s not sure if Chloe understands, exactly, but she thinks she catches on at some point. Because at some point she starts tying the bindings a little tighter, biting at Beca a little harder, giving pain a little more freely.

Beca doesn’t mind. She even kind of likes it.

Either way, it’s what she deserves.

**

She half-hopes Jesse will walk in on them, one day. God, it would be so much fucking _easier_ if he just—

But that’s cruel. That’s so _unbelievably_ cruel. She’s such a fucking pussy, such a goddamn coward, she can’t even think of telling her own boyfriend that she… that they…

She half-hopes he’ll walk in on them, one day. It would be so much easier if he did. And yeah, it makes her feel desperately, _violently_ ill at the thought, but it just… she kind of just wants him to figure it out. She almost can’t stand the sneaking around, the waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It would be so much easier.

She feels like she’s stuck, like she’s been stuck for two years in this relationship she isn’t sure she wants with this person she knows deserves better and she’s just in the middle fucking everything up for all three of them and it just…

(She thinks she might be in a relationship with both of them and she’s not sure who she’s hurting more. She’s fucking _everything_ up.)

_Fuck_ , it would be so much easier.

**

She gets a job interning at a record label full time. The boss might be a little crazy and she might hate most of her coworkers and she might be spreading herself way too thin, but it’s a job and she needs the money and she needs the experience and this is her last year at Barden, she can’t just be doing nothing; she can’t just sit around waiting for her future to drop itself into her lap.

Maybe it’s building resentment over this shit with Chloe; maybe it’s lingering guilt; maybe it’s just a genuine desire to move on. For whatever reason, she starts pulling away.

This internship gives her a reason to avoid Chloe, a reason to avoid the Bellas, a reason to half-ass her school work and a reason to feign exhaustion whenever Jesse starts looking at her with that puppy-eyed expression that she thinks is supposed to make her swoon but instead just makes her want to rip her own hair out.

What the fuck is she _doing_?

She’s fucking everything up.

**

Beca has to wonder, occasionally, _why_ on Earth Chloe is still at Barden. She knows she keeps failing Russian Lit, but it… how can you fail the same class _three_ years in a row?

Also, she’s still a full-time student? So she… she must have earned enough credits by now to have completed a full second major, right? Maybe even a minor, too? She might even have gotten her Masters by now, right?

Is she… _is_ she even failing? Is that just a story? If she _is_ failing, is she doing it on purpose? Is she hanging back in school so she can stay a Bella as long as possible? Is she just too afraid to move on?

(Is she staying for Beca?)

**

Emily’s a good kid. Beca really likes her. She’s a little naïve and _very_ inexperienced, and she hops around like a nervous ball of energy whenever she thinks no one is watching her, and she talks too quickly and too loudly and half the time she looks like she may be sucking on a lemon or something, but she’s a good kid. She’s excitable, but she’s also passionate about acapella (not that many people are, as it turns out) and passionate about the Bellas, so… all in all, Beca can’t complain.

And yeah, maybe she follows Beca around like a lost puppy, sometimes, but Beca can handle that. It doesn’t _really_ get on her nerves.

Emily’s a good kid. She can stomach a little hero-worship for the sake of the team.

(Chloe smiles wider than Beca thinks she’s ever seen, the day they let Legacy into the group. She can’t stop talking about what this means for the “future of the Bellas” and how “this is the motivation we need to win Worlds” and… look, Beca doesn’t put much stock in new members or a girl who barely knows the difference between the Aeolian mode and the Dorian mode, but… fuck, if it makes Chloe happy, she’ll deal with as many excitable eighteen year-olds as exist on planet Earth.)

**

She’s pulling away from Jesse. She can feel it, she _knows_ she’s doing it, and she knows _he_ knows she’s doing it.

She blames the internship. Says she’s so busy trying to work, to finish her degree, to fix all of this shit that’s been piled on them by the school suspending their group, to tackle Chloe’s bouts of insane anxiety and nighttime binge working, so she doesn’t have the time she used to have for dates and hangouts and movie nights.

She’s pulling away from him. She knows she is. She’s not communicating the way she should be, she’s leaving his texts unanswered for hours and ‘forgetting’ to return phone calls and she just…

God, what is she _doing_?

Her entire life is spiraling out of control and all she can do is watch it happen.

**

Maybe it’s because she’s always had a crush on Chloe, ever since that first moment they met at the Activities Fair. Maybe it’s because she thinks she’s been a little in love with her since the night before her first ICCAs performance, all those years ago. Maybe it’s because she’s being pulled between so many things, she has to keep track of so many different things in her mind (her boyfriend, Chloe, this internship, school, Worlds, leaving behind something for Legacy to pick up, trying to come up with original shit to show that producer, making sure the Bellas don’t know about her internship or her thing with Chloe or the fact that she can’t _sleep_ , anymore) that she’s just… she’s getting complacent. Lazy.

She isn’t being careful.

She can’t keep her eyes off Chloe, most days.

She’s not sure when it happens, but she thinks she’s never _really_ noticed how beautiful Chloe is. Not fully, anyway. Not the way she should have noticed.

**

Every minute she spends with Chloe is borrowed time. It’s time she should be spending doing her homework, or studying for her midterms, or working on their set list for Worlds, or spending time at her internship, or checking in with her parents, or creating her own music, or talking to her fucking boyfriend.

She carves out as much time as she can for all the things she needs to do, but most if it goes to Chloe.

She just… it’s _Chloe_. You know?

When they get the chance to see each other for longer than 30 minutes, Beca just… loses herself. She’s so worked up and frustrated and angry and tired and pulled too thin and worrying too much that she can’t do much more than shove Chloe’s dress up around her waist and bury her head between her pale thighs. She can’t do much more than kick off her own jeans and let Chloe finger her roughly, or straddle Chloe’s thigh, or straddle Chloe’s face, and it just…

She loses herself. She lets herself forget, for half a goddamn minute, because with Chloe it’s so fucking easy to forget.

(God, what is she doing?)

(She thinks she might be going insane.)

**

The camping trip is what makes her crack. It’s been a long time coming, this tension that’s been building inside of her, and she always knew she was headed towards a boiling point, some sort of critical mass of _Things_ that she couldn’t keep suppressing and handling and dealing with on her own.

The camping trip almost breaks her.

She’s in the woods with fucking _Aubrey_ yelling things in her ear like a damn drill sergeant and it’s like she’s a freshman all over again, like she’s eighteen, like she’s angry and lost and confused and all she wants to do is leave and go to LA and it reminds her that she _hates_ team activities, _hates_ organized group hangouts, _hates_ spending so much time with women who love her to death but are nosy as hell and can’t leave shit well enough alone and she—

The way Chloe looks at her, when Beca finally tells her about her internship, it just…

Beca yells. She’s never been calm under pressure, never been good about confrontation, never been good about disappointing people. Finally telling her, finally telling _all of them_ about _all of it_ is such a fucking relief, but she doesn’t see it that way. Not at first.

All she feels is panic.

She yells, and Chloe yells back, and all she can think is that she can’t do this. Not here. Not now. She can’t do this.

She has to leave. She can’t stay. She has to leave because she can’t stay and she can’t be here with these people and she can’t be talking about these things and she can’t have Chloe looking at her like _that_ and it just—

She turns to stomp away and it’s only one strangely-rigged giant net that stops her, hoisting her fifteen feet in the air and dangling her over her friends.

Thank God for bear traps, right?

~~

That night, at the bonfire, while the group talks quietly amongst themselves, Chloe leans forward and asks, quietly, “Why wouldn’t you _tell_ me about the internship?”

Beca leans forward, mirroring Chloe’s position, and thinks, _Because I didn’t want to disappoint you,_ but she doesn’t say anything.

“You’re my best _friend_ , Beca,” Chloe continues, and Beca tries not to let the sadness show on her face at hearing Chloe say it like that. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”

She says, “I don’t know,” because it’s easier than telling the truth.

~~

They sneak off to have sex against some tree and it’s slow, slower than it probably should be considering they’re outside and definitely in public and definitely not being as quiet as they need to be, and they make eye contact when Beca slips inside of her and they stay that way, foreheads pressed against each other, exchanging breaths back and forth in the cool night, and Beca kisses her when Chloe comes, and Chloe’s lip trembles. Beca kisses her softly, and Chloe inhales with a shuddering gasp and Beca just wants to… to do _something_. To tell her it’ll all be okay, to make it clear once and for all that she may not know what she’s doing but she knows she wants to try.

She pulls away and it looks like Chloe might have tears in her eyes, and that’s what finally makes Beca decide.

She makes up her mind.

When all of this shit at Worlds is over, when they graduate in a few weeks, she’s going to end things with Jesse; end them for _real_. She’s going to tell him that she loves him, that she cares about him, that he’s been _so_ important to her and such a rock in her life and that he’s probably her best friend in the world and that means so much to her she can’t even explain to him. And she’s going to try to let him down easy, and he’s probably going to cry, but he probably won’t fight her on it because he loves her and he’s such a good guy and he believes in letting people grow on their own and if she tells him this is what she needs he’ll believe her.

It’s time. It’s been four fucking years of this, four years of this _shit_ , and maybe she’s reading too much into these past two days with Chloe, but unless she’s _vastly_ mistaken she thinks Chloe may be feeling the same way.

It’s been too long. She’s been so terrible, so awful, so cruel to so many people around her. They never deserved that. It’s been too long, too much of this same shit, and she just… it has to stop.

She can’t keep doing it.

Even if Chloe wants nothing to do with her when this year is done, she has to end things with Jesse.

She’s just not sure what she should tell him.

**

It’s a miracle that they win Worlds. Honestly, she’s not sure they totally deserve it.

But maybe the judges are feeling especially generous that day, or maybe they’ve entered some sort of alternate universe or something, or maybe Beca really _is_ stuck in some kind of fairytale, because they win. Somehow, they win.

And in the midst of the celebration, after they’ve been swept off the stage, while they’re surrounded by Bellas past and present all passing around their trophy, dancing and hugging and shouting, Beca looks at Chloe — really, _really_ looks at her.

She knows it’s stupid — it’s probably the stupidest thing she’s ever done — but in that crowd of people, Chloe turns to look at her, the world stops spinning, and Beca kisses her.

She tries to say everything in that kiss that she’s never had the courage to say. _I’ve missed you_ and _I love you_ and _I’m willing to try_ and _I’m sorry_ and _I don’t deserve you_ and _Please just wait for me a little longer._

She brushes her lips against Chloe’s every so softly. It’s the most innocent kiss they’ve ever shared, but it feels so _different_ , it feels so much _more_ , that it leaves Beca feeling lightheaded and unsteady on her feet.

She’s not totally sure her message comes across exactly how she wants it to.

It’s just a kiss, after all. That’s a lot of shit it’s supposed to be saying.

**

She makes sure to clean out her room when she knows no one is going to be around. She gets inside, throws everything she can into as many bags as she can (neatness be damned), takes down all of her posters, packs away all of her books, and gets her dad to help take everything to his truck.

It takes less than two hours.

She makes sure to clean out her room when she knows no one’s going to be around for a lot of reasons. (1) She hates goodbyes and has never been very good at them; (2) the sooner she’s packed, the sooner she can start looking for her own place; (3) she wants to skip the mad rush and crush of bodies when everyone starts leaving campus at the same time; (4) she’s a little afraid to see Chloe again, after their kiss at Worlds, because she hasn’t heard anything from her and hasn’t tried to contact her because she’s been trying to get her whole _life_ in order and that’s a lot of stuff to have to do on top of processing her pretty deep romantic feelings for her best friend; and (5) she’s breaking up with Jesse tonight, and she needs to be able to go somewhere that isn’t the Bellas house, after all of that is said and done.

She knows it’s a cowardly thing to do and she knows the other girls are going to be so pissed at her (Chloe is going to be so pissed at her) but it’s what she thinks she has to do.

**

She tells Jesse. In the end, despite all of her thinking and worrying and carefully constructed words, she just tells him the truth.

She’s been so terrible to him, so shitty, such a garbage girlfriend and a garbage friend for so many years that she just…

He deserves so much better than her. He deserves so much better than all of this.

She thinks, at the very least, he deserves the truth.

So, she tells him, and it goes down… about as well as you would have expected.

Meaning: he goes completely catatonic and Beca can’t get him to move or blink or say anything for close to thirty minutes.

He finally just stands and leaves the room, completely expressionless.

She worries about him, frets over what he’ll do, over what he might _plan_ to do. She calls and calls and calls but he never picks up. She leaves a dozen messages before his mailbox chimes at her, politely robotic: _I’m sorry, the mailbox you are trying to reach is full. Please try again later. Goodbye._

She doesn’t see him for three days, not until Lily and Jessica show up to her dad’s house, pounding on the door, telling her _Jesse’s at the house you have to come quick._

She sprints. She stumbles into the kitchen, head reeling and pulse pounding and feeling sick to her stomach. She sees him. She sees Chloe.

Her heart stops.

And, well… you know the rest.

~~

(He asks her if she ever loved him. He asks her if she loves Chloe.)

(Chloe walks out of the house before she can tell him _Yes, yes to both, and I don’t know what to do about it._ )

(Chloe turns and walks out of the house and they don’t see each other again for a very, very long time.)

**


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The summer heat is oppressive in North Carolina._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shorter one for you guys. I decided to split this chapter up into two for plot reasons and also so I could get an update out sooner.
> 
> Hopefully you all like the direction this is headed. I know it’s turned pretty plot-heavy in recent chapters.
> 
> As always, if you want to dish or talk/yell at me, feel free to follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/). I’ve been getting tons of anon messages recently it’s making me feel like a Real Writer so thank you all for that.

**

The summer heat is oppressive in North Carolina. Thick air that feels like soup; slogging days of unendurable murky, foggy, wet waves. When it isn’t raining, the sun beats down against the tops of heads and the backs of necks, cooking cars and superheating pavement, scorching the flesh of bare feet that slap against the ground. The smell of freshly mown grass, new mulch, and — further towards to coast — salt spray permeates everything. Sun screen and bug spray make skin sticky; mosquitos flock from person to person in droves, only driven away by rare and brief breezes off the water. The air feels stagnant and heavy, the days endlessly long.

Chloe spends almost two full months inside.

She knows it isn’t what her parents want. She knows she’s disappointing them. She spent an extra 3 years at Barden and now that she’s _finally_ graduated, here she is. Moving back in with her folks, unpacking clothes in her childhood bedroom, driving down the streets of her hometown, and otherwise failing to make a productive contribution to society.

She’s 25 with a 7-year degree, no job, no basic work skills, and no motivation.

She knows this kind of life isn’t what her parents want for her, nor is it what they want _from_ her. She knows they talk about her at night, muttering back and forth by the solitary light of the one lonely floor lamp in their bedroom, worried confusion seeping evidently into their words. She knows they watch her, knows they poke their heads into her bedroom in the early morning to check to see if she’s asleep, awake, or even there at all.

She knows she’s disappointing them.

They try to ask her what’s wrong. They try to make her feel better, try to make her eat more, try to make her go outside and see her friends and return phone calls and make grocery runs and errand runs and walk neighbors’ dogs. But their efforts are half-hearted at best, too nervous about upsetting the delicate balance she seems to have struck to make any real demands of her. And so her skin pales and she thins, turning pallid with the lack of sun and the lack of exercise and the lack of a desire for food.

It isn’t that she’s starving herself or anything like that. It’s just that she’s so _tired_ , recently. So, _so_ tired. All she really wants to do is sleep and stay in bed and play with her dog and scroll listlessly through her Netflix queue, clicking on shows and movies seemingly at random only to abandon them twenty minutes later due to a lack of interest.

It’s not like she’s doing any of it on _purpose_ , really. She’s just… _doing_ it.

Her parents call on friends and neighbors and old classmates to see if anyone can coax her out of her bed, out of her room, out of her house. They try to entice her with offers of beach trips and days spent lounging by the pool. Her dad even offers to drive her to a summer fair two counties over. _They have a petting zoo_ , he says. _You always used to love petting zoos._

She says no to every offer.

The effort necessary to complete even the simplest of suggested tasks is incredibly daunting, and Chloe doesn’t really care enough to make an attempt.

Not because she doesn’t want to care or she feels maliciously about any of it or because she’s determined to throw a fit like some sort of moody pre-teen. It’s not any sort of conscious decision, on her part. It just _is_ in the way that very simple things just _are_. No explanation or motivation behind it. It just is.

**

For almost two straight months, Chloe barely speaks to anyone that isn’t directly related to her. The closest she gets is Aubrey, who calls about once a week, even though Chloe doesn’t always pick up. Sometimes she answers. Sometimes she misses the call. Sometimes she decides to call back and sometimes she forgets to. Sometimes she sees Aubrey’s name light up her screen and decides she’s not really in the mood for another lecture today so she puts her phone on silent and tries not to twitch her hand towards it every couple seconds.

It works for about two months before Aubrey decides she’s had enough of playing phone tag with a recalcitrant Chloe. So she starts stopping by to visit — completely unannounced, by the way. She just strolls into Chloe’s room like this is a regular thing, like she’s a neighbor from down the street, like they’re still in college and she’s got the spare key to Chloe’s dorm (because of course Chloe made a copy for her like the first week she moved in). She just walks into Chloe’s room, eyes settling on her prone figure buried in her own comforter (where she usually is when Aubrey shows up), and Chloe can see her nostrils flare and her jaw clench but Aubrey doesn’t say anything, doesn’t admonish her. She just leans against the doorframe with arms crossed, eyebrow arched in an expression that’s very clearly meant to say, _So are you gonna move your ass, or what?_

Chloe rises from her bed, showers (if she hasn’t already showered that week), and lets Aubrey drag her to lunch somewhere in the city.

She knows what Aubrey’s trying to do. Aubrey works in South Carolina. She isn’t just “in the neighborhood” of Charlotte once every other week like she claims; it’s _at least_ a three-hour drive to get to Chloe’s house from the resort where she works. Aubrey’s stopping by because she’s worried about her, because she doesn’t like to leave her on her own, because she thinks that Beca really did a number on her and she’s determined to drag her out of her self-inflicted pit of loathing and despair because she hates seeing Chloe so despondent.

(She’s not sure if her parents keep urging Aubrey to come by or if she knows to do it herself. It’s probably a little bit of both.)

Were Chloe in a different state of mind, she would probably play along with the games and the blatant attempts to distract her and drag her from her spiraling thoughts. Were Chloe in a different state of mind, she would probably work harder to make it seem like she’s enjoying herself on their bi-weekly outings, if only for Aubrey’s sake. Three hours is a considerable distance to drive just to hang out with someone who can barely bring herself to crack a smile at your jokes and stories.

But as it stands, she’s very tired. Putting on a façade is a lot of work. She thinks Aubrey understands that about her, thinks that Aubrey understands that she’s doing her best, that going outside in and of itself is a nearly unconquerable challenge most days, that she’s making an attempt for her friend because she loves her and she cares about her and she wants Aubrey to feel like she’s making a difference even if she isn’t.

She _hopes_ Aubrey understands, at least.

**

The air gets starts to get cooler, the tension of summer eases, and as the seasons roll over and as the leaves begin to change, slowly — ever so slowly — Chloe begins to breathe again.

**

She looks at her calendar one day and realizes that Barden classes must have started two weeks prior, meaning that auditions have probably already finished. Emily probably has formed an entirely new Bellas group by now. She’s probably already fumbled her way through the initiation ceremony and scared away at least two potential recruits with her jittery excitement and propensity for telling inappropriate stories about her parents’ sex life. She’s probably already spent four odd weeks unable to sleep, tapping her foot anxiously and shifting in bed, rolling ideas and terrible thoughts through her mind ( _What if no one auditions what if I can’t get a full team together what if we’re terrible what if I can’t lead them what if I don’t know what I’m doing what if we embarrass ourselves and ruin the Bella legacy_ ).

She’s sure Emily’s probably been almost inconsolable with nerves over the past few weeks because that’s how _she_ always felt, at the beginning of a new school year. Chloe’s had her fair share of sleepless anxiety-filled nights. They’re old bedfellows at this point.

Chloe wonders if she should feel stung that Emily doesn’t call her for advice, doesn’t text her frantically at 3 in the morning in a blind panic because she doesn’t think she’s going to be able to amass a full roster, doesn’t call her fifteen times in one day to scream into the phone with excitement.

Emily doesn’t call. Chloe doesn’t know how she should feel about it.

She considers poking around on Facebook, maybe shooting her a quick text to see how she’s doing. She thinks about it but she doesn’t do it. She stares at her phone for seven long minutes before she puts it to the side, unable to make a final decision.

She forgets to pick it up for five full days and by the time she does she figures she’s missed her window. She figures it’s probably already too late.

So she doesn’t call. Emily doesn’t call her, either.

She can’t help but feel like she probably deserves it.

**

On Halloween, Chloe deletes her Facebook.

An impulse decision, really. But she’s gotten so fucking tired of that terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, that lurching clench every time she opens the app, that mixture of _panic_ and _wanting_ and _terror_ and _trepidation_ and _curiosity_ because she wants to know what’s going on in Beca’s life, in the lives of her friends, but she’s too afraid of the answers to actual look. Every minute she spends scrolling through her activity brings another fresh wave of dread. _Am I going to see something do I even want to see something what if I don’t see anything what if I see something I want to see what if I see something I don’t want to see._

She deletes her Facebook on Halloween.

She’s tired of feeling sick every time she opens her own social media. So she gets rid of her social media.

An impulse decision, really, but she doesn’t regret it.

**

She tells her parents she’s going to Aubrey’s for Thanksgiving. She tells Aubrey she’s got family commitments she can’t get out of.

She lies to all of them.

She spends three days driving. Makes it all the way up to Boston before she figures she’s gone far enough and she should probably turn around. She can’t go much farther north anyway, not without her passport (which she definitely didn’t think to bring) and besides, there isn’t much left to see past Boston. New England countryside looks like New England countryside. Vermont won’t be much different from Massachusetts.

She’s not _looking_ for anything; not really. She’s not stopping at Revolutionary War battle sights or pulling to side of the road to run through a field of sunflowers or hiking along the Appalachian Trail or swimming in the Long Island Sound. She’s not on an adventure, not going through some phase of wanderlust, not looking to take artsy Instagram pictures to document her travels. She isn’t even really _travelling_ , she’s just… _going_.

She sleeps in the back of her car and wraps herself tightly in blankets and shivers her way through two cold nights.

She thinks, were she a little braver, she might just keep driving. She might just turn her car west and drive, make her way to the Midwest (Chicago or Columbus or something) and start over. She thinks, were she a little braver, she might not turn around and head back home, because what’s down there for her, really? What does Charlotte have that sets it apart from anywhere else in the country? What is she even really doing in North Carolina? What is she doing down there that she couldn’t do anywhere else?

But she’s _not_ brave. She’s never really _been_ brave, not the way she needs to be. Not when it matters.

She turns around and heads back south.

When she gets back home she smiles at her parents, hands them a pumpkin pie she picked up at the grocery store down the block, and tells them Aubrey sends all of her love.

**

December rolls around and Chloe starts to get a few more phone calls. Cynthia Rose, Stacie, even Amy — they all try to reach her. All within the span of a few hours, too, which makes her think that they must have agreed to coordinate their efforts. Maybe Aubrey had something to do with it. Chloe isn’t sure. She supposes it’s nice of them to try, at least.

She makes note of the calls, texts each of them ‘ _Merry Christmas,_ ’ and then turns off her phone until New Years.

**

In January, it snows. A peculiarity for where she lives, but not entirely unheard of.

She opens her bedroom window and climbs out onto her roof, wrapped tightly in a wool blanket, and leans her head back against the side of her house. She tips her face to the sky and closes her eyes as soft flakes float down, dotting her cheeks like freckles.

It’s a little easier to breathe out here. The January air is crisp and cool and makes her teeth ache but she doesn’t mind the feeling. She opens her eyes and looks up at the sky, dark and clear and glittering with stars. The night sky is more visible in winter than it is in summer, she notices.

She thinks she might like being cold.

By the time she drags herself back inside her hair is wet with melted precipitation, her cheeks flushed from the cold, her fingers aching and red, but she’s smiling. Just a little.

**

On Valentine’s Day, Chloe sleeps until 3.

Her mom gives her a card and a little heart-shaped box of chocolates.

It’s cute.

**

It’s March before Chloe thinks that maybe she should try and call Emily and catch up, see how she’s doing, ask her how leadership is treating her.

She opens her phone to dial before she remembers that Emily and Beca have always worked well together, always been close, always had a sort of mentor-mentee relationship. If Emily hasn’t reached out to ask her for any kind of coaching advice or for help building set lists or choreographing routines, it’s probably because she’s already getting her advice from someone else.

She’s probably been keeping in contact with Beca.

Chloe runs the pad over her thumb over the screen of her iPhone a few times, debating. Finally, she locks the screen and tosses the phone onto her bed.

**

It’s the third day of April when Chloe’s mom physically drags her out of the house and into the office of some old psychiatrist (psychologist? pharmacist?). Chloe’s not exactly sure what his deal is, and she doesn’t catch his name, but he talks to her in a very low and soothing voice, and his jacket is made out of tweed, and his glasses are thin-rimmed and perched precariously on his nose, and his beard is thick and white, and she counts at least 3 boxes of tissues within arm’s reach of the plush blue couch he has her sit on.

A cliché in every sense of the word.

Chloe’s not entirely sure what his deal is, or what his _profession_ even is (she hadn’t been listening when her mom explained), but he talks to her very calmly for about thirty minutes before he starts asking questions — which Chloe’s mom nervously answers without any help — while Chloe does her best not to sink into the back of the couch and close her eyes and fall asleep.

She really is very tired.

Chloe’s not entirely sure what this doctor’s deal is, but he prescribes her some meds at the end of their session.

She fills the prescription under her mother’s watchful and nervous presence but leaves the bottle untouched in her bathroom cabinet.

When she goes back a week later (and every week after that for five consecutive weeks before managing to convince her mom that it’s _‘just not working out’_ ) she smiles brightly and tells him that she’s feeling a lot more balanced and a lot more stable since going on the medication.

He tells her that it doesn’t work like that, that they have to work together to balance levels and moderate dosage and _Find the plan that works for you_ but Chloe just shrugs and says, “Guess you got lucky with me, Doc.”

She doesn’t stay with him long enough for it to _really_ matter, but the unhappy look he sends her is annoying either way.

**

It’s May before Chloe starts to really pay attention to the way her parents talk about her, the way they hover near her. It’s May before Chloe starts tuning into their conversations, before she starts internalizing their anxious and overbearing words. It’s May before Chloe starts growing frustrated with them.

It’s May before Chloe starts to think she should maybe look into moving out.

**

It’s amazing, how quickly a year can pass.

It’s almost like, in the blink of an eye, May is ending and summer is beginning again. Chloe can hardly believe it.

The days seem to blend together as memories of meaningless activities merge with memories of meaningless activities and the long hours spent sleeping and curled up in her bed begin to slip away in an empty haze. She’s not sure this past year even really happened.

She hasn’t spoken to Beca since the last time they saw each other: Chloe with tears in her eyes, Jesse a crumpled figure on the floor, Beca helpless to do anything about it.

It’s been a year. A year that Chloe almost can’t remember.

She remembers the way it began, though. If nothing else, she remembers that.

She tries to pretend that it doesn’t still hurt, that the memory of everything that happened at Barden doesn’t still cut into her. She tries to pretend that this year at home has done her some good, that she’s been growing older and growing wiser and learning to let go of her past and to adapt to a new life and a new situation. She tries to pretend that she’s forgiven Beca for everything that happened. Tries to pretend that she’s forgiven herself.

She hasn’t. Not totally.

(Not even a little bit.)

She doesn’t feel sick to her stomach on a daily basis, so that’s progress. But it still doesn’t mean that she’s forgiven herself. It doesn’t mean that it all meant nothing, that it all hasn’t rocked her and torn into her and fucked up her mental health for a good twelve months, if not much, _much_ longer.

It’s been a year, and as summer rears its ugly head once again, as the sweltering heat billows up in North Carolina, Chloe allows herself to consciously wonder where Beca is and what she’s been doing for this purgatory year.

She wonders, but not enough. Not enough to ask, not enough to really look into it. Not enough to call her.

She isn’t strong enough for that.

She calls Emily, instead.

Dials her number with shaking fingers and with a shaking breath and holds the phone far away from her ear, like she’s afraid it’ll bite her if she brings it too close.

Emily picks up on the second ring. _“Chloe!”_ The girl’s voice is bright and excited, and Chloe thinks then that she probably should have called her a lot sooner. _“Did you hear?”_

No preamble. No ‘How are you doing’ or ‘It’s been so long what’s up with your life.’

The kid cuts to the chase. Chloe admires that about her. “Did I hear what?” She asks, slipping into the normalcy of the conversation. Her voice sounds wrong to her own ears — hollow and a little far away, like she’s speaking from the bottom of a well. She shakes herself. Clears her throat. Blinks and tries to force her mind to sharpen in to their exchange.

_“We got fourth at ICCAs!”_ Emily squeals, and _God_ she sounds so excited. Chloe can almost _see_ her bouncing on the other end of the line. _“I’ve been waiting for calls from you can Beca for like three days!”_

Chloe lets that sentence sink in, lets the knowledge of calendars dawn upon her, recognizes the date, puts her year into perspective, and blinks rapidly for several long moments.

God. Had it really been that long?

“That’s _amazing_ , Em,” she says, trying not to let on just how thrown off she is by this news. She tries to keep her voice excited rather than exhausted, tries to smile alone in her room (because she read one time that even just forcing a smile has been proven to increase dopamine releases in the brain).

Emily squeals again. _“I’m so excited!”_ She half-shouts into the phone. _“I can’t believe it! I was so worried, and you know without you and Beca and and all the othes I really didn’t think that we could do it because_ God _some of these other groups are so talented and I’ve never done anything like this before and it was an entirely new team and I had to make all of the arrangements — with Beca’s help, obviously, but still. But then we did and we made it to finals and got fourth and I just… ahhh!”_

Chloe laughs at her excitement. The gesture feels foreign on her face and in her throat. (She doesn’t stop to think about how long it’s been since she last let herself laugh.) “I’m so happy for you, Emily,” she says sincerely. “I knew you could do it. We _always_ knew you could do it.”

Chloe imagines that somewhere in Georgia, Emily blushes while she holds her phone to her face. _“Thank you so much! And you know, of course, without you and Beca I never could have… well, just thank you guys so much. Without last year… You guys and the Bellas you just made college_ everything _for me.”_

Chloe shakes her head even though Emily can’t see her. “You made it for yourself, Em.”

_“Well,_ yeah _, duh. But without you guys and without Worlds last year I don’t think I could have gotten to where I am today. So like… thank you for believing in me and giving me this opportunity and everything and just… yeah. Thank you.”_

“You don’t need to thank me.”

_“Yeah but I want to.”_

Chloe smiles at that. Pauses. Bites her lip as she thinks and considers.

It’s been a year. She can ask, right? It’s been a full year and Emily doesn’t know how she’s been spending it so it isn’t weird to ask her. She won’t know. (Right?)

It’s not like she can ask _Aubrey_. Not like Aubrey would _tell_ her, even if she _knew_ , even if she _did_ ask.

But it’s… Christ, this is _Emily_. She’s riding high on her first major victory as the captain of her school’s acapella team and Chloe hasn’t spoken to her in a year it’s not like she can just—

Chloe shakes her head, takes a breath, and asks anyway. “Have you… have you heard from Beca, then?” She thinks her voice might be shaking, just a little bit. She swallows and tries to force calm. “I feel like she would have been the first one to call and congratulate you.”

There’s hesitation in Emily’s voice — barely there but definitely noticeable — when she answers, _“Not since right before the competition,”_ a tiny pause, “ _but I don’t blame her. She’s been so busy recently, you know?”_

Chloe’s throat feels tight. Her heart is thumping so heavily in her chest that she thinks if she looked down she might be able to see it bursting out of her chest. “She has?”

_“You guys don’t…_ ” A long pause, like Emily is weighing her words. When she keeps talking, it’s quietly. _“You haven’t been talking?”_ She asks.

“Did Beca tell you we were?” Emily doesn’t answer. Chloe bites her lip. “No, we haven’t… no.”

_“Oh.”_ It’s quiet for a moment. Emily’s voice sounds so small. _“I don’t know how much I can say.”_

“You don’t have to tell me anything, Em. That isn’t why I called.” She doesn’t know what she wants. On the one hand, she respects Emily’s desire to keep private conversations private. On the one hand, she thinks it was a mistake to ask, she thinks she doesn’t want to know, she’s hoping Emily won’t say anything. But on the other hand, now that the conversation has started, she’s practically _desperate_ for an answer, practically desperate for any sort of news, for any sort of clue into… into everything.

_“No, it… it’s okay. I just don’t know how much I can say.”_ She stops, like she’s waiting for something, like she’s waiting for Chloe to tell her to go on or to forget about it because it doesn’t matter and she doesn’t care.

Chloe _wants_ to tell her to forget it. She wants to tell her that it was just a passing curiosity, that she only wondered whether or not Beca has been in contact with Emily, whether or not she seems to be doing well wherever she is. But Chloe is frozen in her chair, unable to speak. She hears a rustling through the phone, like Emily’s just sighed heavily. “ _She’s in LA,”_ Emily says. _“She’s been… she’s been working on cutting a record with some big-name star she isn’t allowed to tell me about. And then she’s working her ass off on her solo stuff too, of course. And she’s DJ-ing at clubs just to pay the bills. I’ve… I’ve flown out to see her a few times. To record with her, and stuff.”_

“Oh.”

_“Yeah.”_

“How, um.” She pauses. Shifts in her chair. “How is she?”

_“She’s… I mean she’s doing well, I think. Really well. Or… about as well as you could imagine, I guess. Given… given everything.”_

Fuck. That’s _worse_ , somehow. The fact that Beca is doing well and the fact that she’s _told_ Emily about how well she’s doing and the fact that she’s apparently in LA and cutting a record and living her fucking dream while Chloe is…

_Fuck_. It makes her angrier than it should. She doesn’t _want_ Beca to have this amazing fucking life out in California while Chloe is basically struggling to tread water in North Carolina.

When she gets off the phone with Emily, she looks around her room, walks through the house she grew up in, skims her fingers along picture frames and digs her toes into plush carpet and decides enough is enough.

She starts packing that day.

**

It takes her a month and a half, tons of research, a hundred or so sent resumes, about two dozen interviews, and applications for Initial Licenses in four states, but she finally gets hired.

She had three extra years at Barden and a ton of time to kill while trying to finish her major, so while she was fiddling around with the terror of graduation and adulthood and leaving Barden behind she started taking classes in as many marketable music-related fields as she could.

Teaching was the first obvious choice. It combines her love of children with her love of singing with her love of creating and formulating and shaping art.

So, given all the extra time she spent at Barden, it’s not really hard for her to start her search.

Luckily, in Colorado, there are no specific coursework requirements for Elementary educator licensure. All she has to do is take a Subject Area Competence test (which she passes easily) and they hire her almost right away.  Music teachers are in high demand almost everywhere in the country, and even though it doesn’t pay her very well it pays her enough and it’s a _job_ and it’s away from _here_ and that’s all that matters. They offer her a job and she takes it.

So Chloe moves. She gets a job teaching Elementary school students how to sing in Denver and she moves.

Doesn’t even think about it, barely stops long enough to rent an apartment, and then she’s gone.

**

Denver is nothing like she expects, all though in all fairness she doesn’t expect much.

It’s warmer than she expects. She’s in Colorado, in the _mountains_ , and in retrospect it’s silly but she really thought it would be cold like… year-round, here. And while it certainly isn’t _North Carolina hot_ in Colorado, it isn’t _cold_.

It’s also, kind of surprisingly, a bustling city. Which again… she didn’t expect. And the population isn’t as big as Charlotte because Colorado is smaller than North Carolina but it still feels so _big_. And she’s not sure what she expected when she accepted the offer to teach here but… this isn’t it.

She expected cold, she expected quiet, she expected secluded and sleepy. She expected an ability to sink into the background, to disappear into her thoughts somewhere her parents couldn’t hover over her and mark her every move.

So, Denver turns out to be really nothing like she expects at all.

It’s better.

**

On the first day of school, Chloe’s hands shake so much as she writes her name on the chalkboard at the front of the class that her scrawl is almost illegible to the class full of third graders staring up at her with wide, semi-fearful eyes.

Her throat feels tight, constricted with nerves. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to sing in her current state so she very quietly and politely goes around the circle of students instead, asking for their names and ages and favorite song. It kills about fifteen minutes, but most importantly it does the trick and eases everyone’s nerves. Once the kids start relaxing around her they start to relax around each other too, which means they start talking more and laughing and whispering to each other under the drone of introductions and presentations.

Chloe knows she should scold them, but she doesn’t really feel like she’s in much of a position of authority while she sits cross-legged in the midst of a group of eight-year-olds. Besides, it’s the first day of school and she wants all of them to like her. And discipline isn’t something that generally comes easy to her. She’s just grateful no one’s _cried_ , yet.

In the end she spends the rest of class walking them around the room she spent close to twenty full hours decorating. She leads them to the bin of instruments — plastic maracas and tambourines and finger cymbals and claves — and tells them that every Friday she’ll let all of her classes choose the activity for the day. “We can learn how to sing your favorite songs or we can learn about the history of music in Latin America or we can all sit and draw, if that’s what you want.” She looks at the class — her first _ever_ class — and feels remarkably young and old at the same time. She has to swallow to stop tears from forming in her eyes. (She can’t cry in front of them. That would be horribly humiliating.) “I want you all to feel like you belong here. Music is a safe space for everyone. Hopefully, by the end of the year, you’ll love it as much as I do.”

They smile up at her and she takes her first relieved breath since stepping onto the tarmac in Denver a month and a half ago.

**

By the second day, she’s started to get the hang of things. Only one kid — in her class of mostly-well-behaved fifth graders right after lunch — gives her any trouble. But when he starts messing around with some of the louder instruments in the back of the room without asking for permission, she doesn’t hesitate to reprimand him. And it gets easier, after that.

By the end of the week she’s even looking _forward_ to dragging herself out of bed at 5:30 in the morning in order to make it to the school sufficiently early. She wakes up invigorated and excited and goes to sleep feeling calm and fulfilled.

She thinks it might be the first time in her life those feelings have existed simultaneously within her.

She likes it.

**


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Chloe likes Denver. But she never really planned on staying._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second part of Chapter 7.
> 
> I’ve been getting some requests to add more/continue some of the sex scenes from earlier chapters, which… I’ve definitely been considering.
> 
> So I’ve decided you guys can submit requests to my [ tumblr. ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/) I’ll work on those in between working on finishing this. You can send me smut prompts or anything else. Submit and I’ll write a one-shot and post it to my tumblr.

**

She meets Colin at a coffee shop her second month in town. It’s a cliché of a meeting, beginning with him offering some half-assed excuse for talking to her and ending with her scribbling her number down onto a napkin for him to fold into the pocket of his slightly-overpriced jeans.

She doesn’t _really_ expect him to call — years of exchanging numbers with other twenty-somethings at bars and frats has led her to expect certain things, mainly lost contacts and the dumb ‘wait-three-days’ rule and her own reluctance to pursue anything with any of them — so when her phone lights up a week later with a call from an unknown number, Chloe figures it’s a solicitor and doesn’t pick up. But Colin, undeterred, leaves a message. And because it’s the first message she’s gotten in five weeks from someone who _isn’t_ related to her, her heart feels light as she listens to it three times through.

His voice is deep and slightly raspy, like he’s just getting over a cold. His words are measured and confident as he cracks a joke on her answering machine before asking her if she’d like to meet him for a coffee the next day. _I’m not sure if you’re the dating type,_ he says with a laugh in his throat, _so I’m not going to ask you out. I’m just calling to tell you that I’ll be back at the same place we met tomorrow at 5:00, and if you just_ happen _to show up at the same time, well… I guess we’ll just have to call it fate._

He makes her laugh, and she remembers that his smile is nice, and she hasn’t been asked out _for real_ in maybe two years and it’s such a new and revitalizing feeling that she just… it makes her feel _good_. So she goes. And he pretends to be surprised to see her but she can tell he’s actually very pleased by the fact that she’s shown up at all.

He buys her a coffee and they talk for two hours before he asks if she wants to swing by some fast-casual restaurant/bar he knows two blocks away.

She’s having a good time and doesn’t really want the date to end just yet, so she agrees.

He takes her hand once they step out of the coffee shop and it’s a little weird because his fingers are too big, his hand a little clumsy in hers and it doesn’t feel _right_ but it doesn’t feel _wrong_ , either, so she doesn’t say anything about it. She lets him hold her hand.

He pays for her dinner and they keep talking for another hour and a half before Colin — reluctantly, almost — calls it a night. Chloe’s not sure if it’s a happy coincidence or if he’s just extraordinarily perceptive, but she’s grateful for it. She had been growing a little tired, a little weary, not used to spending so much time with one person prying so deeply into her personal life. It’s a little exhausting, and she had been searching for a way to politely end their evening when Colin took matters into his own hands.

She’s thankful for it, either way.

He walks her out and waits with her while she calls an Uber home. When her car arrives he steps smoothly and surely into her space and bends his head and Chloe — almost on instinct — reaches her neck up and meets his lips with her own.

It’s a sweet first kiss and it makes Chloe smile, almost in spite of herself.

He asks if he can see her again and she agrees. Because why not? It’s been good to get out of her apartment, good to be out in the world, good to meet someone new, good to talk to someone besides Aubrey or her parents, good to share things about her life and make an actual human connection. It’s also been nice having someone compliment her and show an interest in her hometown and in her parents’ jobs and it’s been nice having someone look at her reverently when she walks in a room and it’s been nice having someone invested in her words and in her ideas. It’s been nice having someone flirt with her, run a hand along her arm and place warm guiding pressure on her lower back as she walks through a door. It’s been nice to be wooed and courted and pursued, nice to be admired.

It’s nice to be kissed.

She likes Colin. And they have a great first date. She thinks she’ll probably see him again.

(She can’t help but see Beca in the sweep of his hair, in the way he peels at the label of his beer absentmindedly while they talk, in the way his smile quirks up just a little more on one side than the other, in the teasing glimmer in his eyes.)

(She tries to tell herself that it doesn’t contribute to her agreeing to a second date, but she’s never really been very good at lying. Not even to herself.)

~~

Colin is really, _really_ nice, but that’s about all he is. Nice.

He’s nice and unassuming and he wears button up plaid shirts and dark wash jeans rolled up one time at the ankle. He keeps his hair neatly trimmed and he always has a pair of sunglasses in his pocket. He brings her flowers and kisses her hello and they’ve gotten a little better at holding hands because now it feels comfortable and warm — not too hot, not too sweaty — and he always texts her back and returns her calls, which might be the nicest part about him.

He’s nice but boring, unassuming but predictable, sweet but misguided. He loves Denver because he grew up there and he can’t imagine living anywhere else. He works for an architecture firm right now but his dream is to be an illustrator, and Chloe’s not _entirely_ sure how he plans on pursuing a career in illustration if he never plans on leaving Colorado, but that’s what he says. He says he never wants to leave.

Chloe tries to bring it up once — and only once. He laughs too loudly at her, the sound sharp against her ears, dismissing her concern with barely a sentence. _If my work’s good enough it won’t matter where I am,_ he says earnestly, and Chloe’s not really sure she has the heart to tell him that that _definitely_ isn’t the case. She’s not sure if it’s naïveté, cockiness, or stupidity that makes him fervently believe that the entirety of the Hollywood-industrial-complex doesn’t apply to him, but either way she lets it lie. She doesn’t bring it up again. It’s not a fight worth having, and it isn’t a fight she’s going to win. There’s no point in it, really. If it makes him happy to stay where he is and have his dream, she can let him have it.

He’s nice, at least. She thinks she likes him a lot.

He’s nice and sweet and the sex isn’t half-bad and their relationship is pretty solid, if still very new, but most importantly: he’s not already married or in a relationship, he kisses her in public, he takes her out on dates, he tells her she looks beautiful with complete sincerity, and he introduces her to his friends. They actually have a _relationship_ , which is a pretty major accomplishment for her, especially considering her life the past five years.

He’s nice. And yeah, maybe he’s a little boring and a little predictable but he’s cute and he seems to really like her and she thinks she likes him, too. Probably.

(He isn’t Beca. That’s what matters.)

~~

He calls her ‘Chlo’ one day, almost off-hand, almost by accident, but it makes Chloe’s heart seize so suddenly in her chest that she actually loses her breath.

She can feel the tremors start in her hands and she _knows_ that Colin notices her reaction because his eyes widen and his face gets incredibly serious and he tells her she looks like she’s seen a ghost as he lays a gentle hand on her forearm. He asks her if she’s okay, but she doesn’t trust her own voice enough to answer him so she just has to nod and grip at the edge of her chair tight enough for her knuckles to turn white as her fingers scream at her in protest.

He doesn’t look sure, and she never explains that he’s done something wrong — she uses food poisoning as an excuse to cut their date short, and he seems to take her at her word. When he drops her off at her apartment later that night she thanks him and tells him she’ll see him later and then goes inside and curls up into a ball in the middle of her bed, her dress still on and her heels flung haphazardly to the side of the room. She clutches a pillow to her chest and sobs because she has to, because she _can,_ because she thinks she’s been kidding herself this whole time, thinking that she’s okay and that nothing’s wrong and that she’s strong enough to do this, that she’s ready to see other people, that she can move across the entire damn country just to get away from Barden and the memory of Georgia and Beca and she just…

Luckily, it isn’t long before her exhaustion catches up to her and sleep momentarily relieves her of her terrible feelings. So her misery is, if nothing else, brief.

~~

The kids save her. Honestly they do. Chloe hadn’t been expecting it, hadn’t been expecting to care so fucking _much_ about something, hadn’t expected these tiny little people to worm their way into her life and make her actually genuinely _excited_ about her job, hadn’t expected to want to get up in the morning if only to make sure she doesn’t let them down, but here she is.

She drags herself out of bed earlier than usual the next morning, a single mantra churning through her mind again and again and again: _Get up get to school they want to see you you have to teach them about chords today._

Somehow, it works. She drags herself out of bed and lets the necessity of responsibility grip her and she sinks into the feeling of utility for having an accomplishable task.

_Take a shower. Brush your hair. Get to school._

It’s so easy, when she lists her actions like that. When she makes a list of small things that she knows she can do, it’s so much easier for her to get from point A to point B. So, _so_ easy.

(It’s not _actually_ easy for her to go, but she _does_ go, and thus avoids being fired from her first most crucial job. So it might not be easy, but it is necessary, and she actually _does_ it, so… progress, right?)

~~

Her relationship with Colin doesn’t last longer than about two months. In the end, they just want different things. They part ways respectfully, with no bad feelings between them.

In the end they just want different things. He’s never planning on leaving Denver, and Chloe never really planned on staying.

**

She meets Marcos at parent-teacher night, the version of ‘back to school night’ that Chloe’s school district throws in the winter, at the start of the second semester. Just in case any of the parents forgot who their kid’s teacher was over the two week break for Christmas and New Years.

The other teachers dread it. They hate the redundancy, the need to dress up and play nice with a bunch of over-excited parents who want you to tell them how gifted their children are and how they are all advanced students well beyond what their age would imply. The other teachers hate the badgering they receive, the way parents question the amount of homework they give and the books they assign and how they don’t think their child is getting enough foreign language exposure and could the school please put more emphasis on mathematics and science and spend less time on art classes and electives? (The kids are all _younger than_ _ten_ ; surely they can hold off learning advanced mathematics for a few more years.)

Lucky for Chloe, being only a music teacher, her task is much simpler. “Just… smile and look pretty and tell them about the music program,” the Vice Principle tells her the morning of the event. She’s an older woman, slightly frazzled and with greying hair that shoots out in shocks from her scalp. Chloe knows she stresses about these things more than just about anyone. So she smiles and nods.

Mrs. Wheeler smiles back at her gratefully. She reaches out a hand and places it on Chloe’s arm. “You’re young and beautiful and you’ll charm them completely. Thank you so much for doing this.”

~~

She meets Marcos that night.

It’s very early in the night. Only four or five parents are in her room and they all seem to know each other. They mill about by her desk; two of the men hold store-bought cookies in their hands while they chat (Chloe’s idea; people always tend to warm up to you when you hand them baked goods).

A tall man appears at Chloe’s elbow while she is sifting through the stack of nametags and markers she’s set out on one of the tables in the front of the room. He bends over next to her and scribbles his name on the sign-in sheet with a flourish.

Chloe looks up as the group of parents in the corner all laugh loudly. She smiles, relieved that they seem to be having a good time.

This man doesn’t seem to know them. He has dark hair and scruff around his chin. He’s wearing a nice suit, though his hands are tan and well worn from what looks to be years of labor. His eyes are kind but his expression is unsure. Chloe gets the impression this is his first time at one of these things.

“Which one is yours?” He asks her, his eyes scanning the row of nametags on the table in front of them both. Each nametag has the first and last name of the parent and the first name of their child, for the teachers’ sakes as well as the parents’.

She has to laugh, not sure if she should be flattered or insulted that he thinks she’s old enough to have a kid in the third grade. Although _technically_ , she supposes, she _is_ old enough to have an eight year-old. (Although she would have had to have gotten pregnant pretty young. She’s only twenty-seven.)

“I’m their teacher, actually,” she says, pointing to her own nametag that says _Miss Beale_ in large, looping letters.

He laughs and looks sheepishly apologetic. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Yes, Miss Beale, I’ve heard of you. Sofía talks about you all the time.”

“You’re Sofía’s dad?” Chloe is pleasantly surprised. “Oh she’s just lovely. Has a real knack for the drums.”

“Oh please don’t suggest I get her a drum kit. _Please_. I’ll never sleep again.”

Chloe laughs again. “I make no promises. I’m here to _encourage_ talent, after all. And you never know, you could have a regular Sheila E on your hands.”

“Sheila E? Please. She’s very obviously the next Meg White.”

“Oh right, my mistake.” Chloe squints at him. “She’s told me you listen to the White Stripes obsessively. Do I need to intervene in her musical education? Are you going to indoctrinate her into the rock music world?”

He smirks. “And what’s so wrong with the rock music world?”

“The vocals are completely uninspired.”

“Oh no, no no no. That’s an oversimplification. Clearly you have not been listening to the right rock songs.”

Chloe smiles. “Guess you’ll have to educate me, then.”

She’s flirting. She knows she is. He’s an incredibly attractive man, she knows he and his wife are divorced. There’s nothing technically wrong with flirting with him. But she _also_ knows that flirting with him is likely a terrible idea.

But the way his eyes light up when they meet hers makes butterflies flutter in her stomach, and she finds she’s willing to take a risk.

~~

He asks her out at the end of the night but Chloe turns him down. He’s the father of one of her students; dating him would be — while not _technically_ against the rules — certainly a breach of trust between her and Sofía. Plus, she doubts the other parents or teachers would look too fondly on the situation.

He asks her out and she says no and thinks that that’s the end of it.

But fate has a funny way of interfering.

~~

They run into each other a few more times and, well, Chloe’s not seeing anyone right now and it’s been a while since Colin and even longer since Beca. She’s pretty much settled into her new life in Denver, it just… she’s starting to feel lonely. She’s starting to miss human connection. She doesn’t really have any _friends_ here. All she has are the kids and her work and polite relationships with colleagues.

It’s not enough for her.

So when Marcos asks her out again a month and a half after that first night, after run-ins in the grocery story, two coffee shops, and a restaurant, she says yes.

Because what could it hurt?

~~

He’s about five years older than Chloe. He’s older and more well-established; he’s a hard worker though not very rich. He lives in a modest townhouse about twenty-five minutes from her. He works a full-time job and splits custody with his ex-wife, with whom he still has a decent working relationship.

He’s different from anyone she’s ever dated. Not just because of the age difference, or the fact that he has a daughter, or the fact that he’s the father of one of her students, or the fact that he’s got a home and an established career. All of that is completely different too, of course.

Being with Marcos is… relaxing, almost. There’s less pressure around their relationship. They don’t really go out to bars and they don’t stay out into the early hours of the morning even on the weekends because more often than not Marcos has Sofía for the weekend. They don’t spend lazy days relaxing together on couches or beds. They don’t go out for shitty diner food. Chloe starts to stock her fridge with things beyond cold cuts, yogurt, milk, juice, and beer. She starts ordering more salads when they go out to eat. She buys a pie server.

It all feels very grown up. Very adult.

Chloe’s 27. This should be the kind of relationship she wants. The kind she’s striving for.

But for some reason it feels all wrong.

~~

Chloe never goes home with him. Despite the fact that she is definitely attracted to Marcos and despite the fact that she definitely wouldn’t mind going home with him and despite the fact that she hasn’t had sex in going on six months, she never goes home with him.

The weirdest thing about it is that she doesn’t think she _minds_ not going home with him. She likes Marcos, that much is obvious, but she understands that his life is kind of complicated. She’s the first woman he’s been with since he and his wife split up, and she understands how tricky that can be when you have a young daughter to consider.

She gets it. She understands. And she doesn’t mind.

(Maybe she _should_ mind. Maybe she should _want_ him to introduce her officially to Sofía, to tell his daughter that they’re seeing each other, to see what she says about it. Maybe she _should_ mind that they aren’t having sex so their relationship feels more _platonic-work-friends-who-sometimes-kiss_ as opposed to _serious-romantic-partners_.)

(But she doesn’t mind. And maybe that’s a bad thing.)

~~

He tells Chloe one day when they’re out to dinner that he wants to tell Sofía about their relationship.

Chloe is, understandably, pretty hesitant.

They’ve been together about five months but it feels too soon, too serious, it feels like too much. It’s one thing when she’s dating the handsome father of one of her third grade students but it’s quite another when she’s facing down the likelihood that she’s going to have to tell his very young daughter that her teacher is dating her father.

_God_ it’s… there’s so much about this that she has to think about. He can’t just spring this news on her like it’s nothing because it _isn’t_ nothing, it’s a whole hell of a lot of _something_ , and Chloe can’t process her thoughts fast enough to give him a satisfactory answer.

Where is this relationship even going? Is it serious enough for Chloe to start to take on the responsibility of spending time with a kid as a sort of peripherally parental figure? If this relationship continues, and if she starts to get to know Sofía outside of school, and if things with Marcos get more serious…

She feels a responsibility to protect Sofía. She cares about her deeply; the last thing she would want to do is hurt her. And her relationship with Marcos is still pretty new. She doesn’t know how it would go over if this all continued; if she started to get to know Sofía; if she moved in with them; if Sofía started to get attached to her…

If it she didn’t have to consider Sofía’s feelings in all of this, she may not have ever really examined the potential longevity of her relationship with Marcos. She likes him; she likes him a lot. She may even be well on her way to falling in love with him. This is an easy step, all things considered. Officially meeting his daughter _should_ be an easy thing for her to want to do. She should at least be able to rationally ponder and consider the idea.

But she can’t. Not really.

Because when it all comes down to it, Chloe likes Denver. But she never really planned on staying.

She smiles and kisses him and tells him she’ll think about it. But she’s already made up her mind.

~~

This thing with Marcos is lovely, but it’s getting too serious too quickly and Chloe can’t handle that. She can’t. She can’t put herself through that, can’t continue a relationship with a man so settled here, with a young daughter who isn’t looking for a new mom. Chloe isn’t ready to be even partly responsible for raising a kid.

She ends things quietly in the middle of summer, and he says he understands. Her reasoning, after all, makes sense. She doesn’t want to risk his relationship with Sofía. She doesn’t want to risk _her_ relationship with Sofía. She’s the first woman he’s dated seriously since his marriage ended. She feels immense pressure surrounding the responsibility of being that for him. She’s not sure she’s ready for the responsibility of seriously being a part of his daughter’s life. She’s too young. It’s such a big and important step and she doesn’t think she’s ready for something like that.

He understands. Or at least he says he does. He smiles at her sadly when he leaves her apartment, kisses her on the cheek, and wishes her all the best.

When she closes the door behind him, she thinks that she should feel sadder than she does. She thinks she should be more upset.

But all she really feels is relief.

~~

She feels like she’s burning through relationships faster than she can blink. It’s like every connection she makes she has to eventually break.

It’s like she can’t handle being an adult in an adult relationship. It’s like every little thing feels like _too much too soon not ready_.

It’s like every little thing makes her think of what she could have had. Where she could have been.

If only.

~~

In August, school starts back up again, and it’s almost shocking how normal it all feels. Chloe’s entering into her second year of teaching and she’s feeling well adjusted and accomplished and like she’s finally getting her life back on track, like she’s finally getting a handle on everything.

She feels a little twinge every time she sees Sofía dance happily into her classroom but she shoves it away and to the side.

She finds herself thinking quietly on a lot of her lunch breaks, contemplating her decisions in her last relationship. (Should she have ended things? Should she have given Marcos and Sofía more of a chance? Should she have tried harder to rise to the occasion of responsibility?)

It doesn’t do any good to dwell on the past. Chloe’s learned that acutely over the past two years.

So she stops thinking about it, tries not to dwell, and everything goes back to normal.

When Marcos shows up for back to school night he and Chloe exchange polite pleasantries, but nothing beyond that.

She’s relieved that it all seems to be turning out okay.

~~

Aubrey comes to visit her in September, and Chloe hadn’t even realized how much she missed her until Aubrey is squeezing her into a tight hug in the middle of the Denver airport and they both have tears streaming down their faces.

Aubrey is like a relief, like a breath of warm air in the summer. Everything about her makes Chloe’s life brighter. Her apartment feels warmer, the winds a little less chilly, her walk to school a pleasurable stroll.

She loves having Aubrey around.

It feels almost like old times.

“You look happy here, Chloe,” Aubrey says on her second night in Denver, face shining and open and warmly lit by the light of the candle between them. The restaurant they’re in is quiet and dark, but where Chloe once would have felt constrained and constricted by such an environment, now she only feels comforted by it.

“I am,” Chloe says with a smile, and it’s almost the truth.

Aubrey looks like she understands what Chloe isn’t saying. She smiles softly anyway. “I am really _really_ glad that you found a place here, Chlo. Something to do that you love.”

“Yeah,” Chloe says quietly, “me too.”

Aubrey places her hand on top of Chloe’s. “You should call me more often, you know. It gets lonely down south without you there to keep me company.”

Chloe laughs. She laughs because she’s _so_ happy Aubrey is here, laughs because it’s such a _relief_ to have her friend in town, because she’s missed her terribly and she’s missed nights like this. Because she’s lonely, too, but not so much anymore. Not since she’s started to hammer down her routine and since she’s started to date and go out and throw herself into her work and her kids and her life here. Not since Marcos. She’s not so lonely now as she once thought she would be.

She’s not lonely when Aubrey is around.

Their week together passes by too quickly. Chloe’s very sad to see her go.

**

She meets Raquel in the middle of November. Raquel is 29, a fifth grade science teacher with blonde hair and a gleaming smile and eyes that are grey like a storm.

They kind of meet by accident in the middle of a school day. Heavy snow flurries have made the roads somewhat treacherous, so the Principal decides to close school early. Most of the other teachers are scrambling, anxious to leave before roads get too icy and travel becomes next to impossible, but not Chloe. She only lives about a mile away from the school, and she doesn’t mind walking, even in a snow storm.

She’s not entirely adapted to this new type of weather, not entirely comfortable with grey, overcast morning skies and snow that piles up past her knees and days that are so cold it makes her joints creak, but she likes winter in general. She likes snow. She grew up in the south, where snow was scant if ever present, and she’s never seen monstrous levels like the kind they get in Colorado.

It’s still novel to her, so it still excites her.

She doesn’t mind walking home.

So she offers to hang back with the remaining kids, the ones whose parents drive them or who don’t live on a bus route or who depend on afterschool programs to watch them while their parents work long shifts. They’re too young to be let off campus unsupervised — it’s against policy— but that’s okay. Chloe doesn’t mind waiting with them. Even as the snow piles up outside, she invites the twenty or so remaining students into her empty music classroom and plugs her phone into the outdated sound system affixed to the wall and leads a dance party to the Beatles’ greatest hits.

It’s there that Raquel finds her, twirling in the midst of two dozen children aged 6 to 11, laughing as they jump around and clap to _Yellow Submarine._

Chloe doesn’t notice her, though. She continues to dance and sing assuming that they are the only ones who remain at school. She only hears about Raquel’s first impression of her weeks after the fact.

Their actual first meeting goes a little differently.

~~

The snowstorm happens on a Thursday, so they don’t get back to school until the following Monday.

When Chloe _does_ show up early on that Monday morning, the school is invitingly warm after the bruising cold of outside, the harsh fluorescent lighting still preferable to the dark exterior world. Chloe never realized how _dark_ mornings could be before 6.

Chloe is in the teacher’s lounge refilling her cup of coffee when Raquel approaches her.

She yawns widely, blinking a few times as she sets her coffee down, starting to riffle through the fridge for those little containers of cream she knows the crotchety old guy who teaches one of three fourth grade classes hordes somewhere.

Chloe feels a warm presence behind her and she stiffens as someone leans over her — very close to her body. Chloe opens her mouth to say something (probably along the lines of _Hey asshole, back the fuck off_ ) when a woman’s voice, steady and rough like gravel, says, “Mr. Gibbons hides the creamers up here—” she flips up the compartment made to store eggs— “where he thinks no one will look.”

As she backs away from the fridge the woman’s hand emerges from the bin she had been searching with three tiny containers clutched between her fingers. Chloe straightens and turns around and comes face to face with a young woman. She’s beautiful, and her smile is more than a little disarming, but to Chloe it looks something halfway between accommodating and smirking; like she’s laughing at some joke Chloe hasn’t been made privy to.

Still, she holds out her hand and Chloe takes two of the offered containers with a tentative smile back. “Thanks,” she says, nudging the refrigerator shut with her hip and slipping by the blonde woman. She rescues her coffee from where it sits by the microwave and moves across the lounge, settling herself at the long faux-wooden table near the door. She has about twenty-five minutes left before the first bus of students starts arriving, which means she has about twenty minutes to drink her coffee and relax before she has to go back to her classroom. (It’s not like she _needs_ to be there right as the bell rings. No grade starts the day with music without first meeting in their homeroom. Truth be told, she could probably get to school later than the other teachers and it wouldn’t matter. But she likes to be early, because her anxious nature tends to make her stress and overthink things. So she finds it’s easier to be over-prepared than under-prepared.)

The woman, however — clearly unable to take a hint — follows Chloe across the room and sinks into a chair opposite the one Chloe’s decided to claim.

Chloe glances up at her but makes no comment, choosing instead to sip her coffee and peruse a newspaper one of the janitorial staff must have left behind accidentally. It’s from last Wednesday, and Chloe has no interest in reading it, but it gives her something to do and makes her look busy so she flips the pages idly as she pretends to skim.

They sit in silence for a few minutes before Chloe decides to chance another glance at the as-yet-unidentified woman across from her.

When Chloe looks at her she finds large grey eyes openly staring at her. Chloe flushes and drops her head back down quickly.

The woman across from her shifts in her seat and clears her throat. Chloe glances back up. “We haven’t been introduced yet.” She holds out a hand for Chloe to shake. “Raquel Thomas. I teach fifth.”

Chloe’s brow furrows. She doesn’t know this woman, has never heard of her, has never seen her around the halls or met her at staff meetings or parent-teacher conferences or back to school nights. _Where did she come from?_

“Chloe Beale,” Chloe says, taking the offered hand in greeting. “I teach music.”

Raquel — Miss Thomas? — grins widely and sits back in her chair. Her feet are crossed at the ankle, her hands folded in front of her. If it weren’t for the distinctive lazy slouch of her shoulders, she would look as prim and proper as an eighteenth-century painting. “I know who you are,” she says, her eyes twinkling with undisclosed mirth. “I’ve heard all about you. The kids all speak very highly of you. It seems I’ve quickly been replaced as their favorite teacher. You’ve only been here, what, ten months?”

Chloe tries not to make it so obvious that she’s staring, but she really can’t help it. She frowns. “I know I’m pretty new here, but I thought I had met all of the teachers?”

Miss Thomas shakes her head. “I’ve only just come back this semester. I was on a leave of absence all of last year.”

“Oh.” Chloe blinks a few times. “Wow, sorry, I feel like such a dunce. I guess I just never heard of you?”

Miss Thomas laughs ruefully. “Well, that stings. Gone all of one school year and already I’ve been forgotten.” Chloe moves to correct herself, worried she’s been unintentionally rude, but Miss Thomas is still smiling wryly. “Although,” she says, her eyes softening a little around the edges, “I guess I don’t blame them. Seems I’ve been dethroned.” She says it like it’s a joke, her eyes flitting down Chloe’s form in a way that can’t be accidental.

Chloe flushes but manages to quip back, “I feel a _Snow White_ reference in there.”

“Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

“You’re not about to offer me an apple, are you?”

Miss Thomas laughs loudly, the sound ringing pleasantly around the empty room. “You’re funny,” she says, her mouth quirking up to one side.

Chloe arches an eyebrow. “You say that like you’re surprised.”

“Well, yeah, did you ever meet the _last_ music teacher? God, she was awful. I don’t think I ever saw her smile a single time, and I’ve worked here for three years.”

Chloe laughs now, too, though it’s accompanied by a good-natured grimace. “Ouch.”

Miss Thomas nods solemnly. “Oh, you have no idea.” She pauses again, her fingers drumming against the table as she appraises Chloe once more. “I have to say,” she says with a tilt of her head, her voice quieter, more contemplative, “I’m really enjoying her replacement. It’s a vast improvement.”

Chloe opens her mouth to say respond (though she has nothing even remotely clever to follow that up with, flushed and flustered as she is) when the door off to her left clicks open, the sound loud enough to startle Chloe. She jumps in her seat as Mr. Gibbons enters the lounge, bowtie meticulously tied and lips pursed in a way that very clearly indicates he’s in a foul mood.

Chloe bites her lip and ducks her head as Miss Thomas laughs in spite of herself. Mr. Gibbons shoots them both a disgruntled look and starts to mutter under his breath as he makes his way to the coffee machine on the counter.

Chloe is hiding a smile behind her own mug when Miss Thomas stands across from her, pushing her chair under the table and smiling at Chloe like they’re co-conspirators in a great scheme they’ve just managed to pull off.

“Well,” she says, “it was very nice to meet you, Miss Beale.”

“Oh no, it’s just… Chloe. Chloe is fine.”

Chloe knows she’s not imaging the twinkle in the woman’s eye when she nods and smiles back. “Chloe, then.” She leans across the table, using her head to gesture behind her at the man riffling through the cabinets. “You might wanna get out of here before he discovers our heist.” She whispers. Winks.

Chloe laughs but, understanding the wisdom of the woman’s advice, scoops up her coffee and newspaper and beats a hasty retreat to her classroom.

But the interaction makes her smile for the rest of the day.

~~

Chloe likes her job — she’s actively liked her job since practically the day she started — but she hasn’t really ever had a _friend_ at work before. She’s had coworkers and colleagues and maybe a mentor or two; she’s had people she can eat lunch with and people to laugh with during terrible winter concerts or bustling parent-teacher nights; she’s had a fair number of people to exchange nice smiles and polite conversation with, for sure. But she’s never really had a _friend_ at work before.

Not until Raquel, at least.

Raquel, who starts bringing Chloe her regular Starbucks order every morning because she notices the way Chloe grimaces every time she has to force down the shitty teacher’s lounge coffee. Raquel, who knocks on Chloe’s classroom door every day during her extended lunch period and asks if she minds some company. Raquel, who steals Chloe’s phone after hours while they’re loitering around Chloe’s classroom and plugs it into the stereo system — the same one Chloe uses to play the Beatles and easy choral songs for her students — and puts on top 20 radio and blasts Fifth Harmony through the speakers when all of the students have gone home. Raquel, who starts making playlists on Chloe’s phone under increasingly ridiculous titles ( _Jamz, Sweet Summer Crooning, Elevator Jazz_ — comprised entirely of female rap artists _, The Shit I Like But No One Else Will Listen To,_ and _I Guess?_ being some of the best ventures). Raquel, who starts offering her rides home from work because she notices that Chloe doesn’t have a car and abhors the terrible Denver public transportation system, even though Chloe _swears_ up and down that she doesn’t mind the relatively short walk back to her apartment. Raquel, who kicks her feet up on Chloe’s desk while she grades papers, who taps her pen along with the beat as Chloe hums through the songs she wants to introduce to her fifth grade class the next day.

It’s been a good long while since Chloe’s spent so much time with one person, since Chloe’s been so invested in a friendship like this. It’s been so long since she’s even made a new friend that she finds herself swept up in the excitement and the thrill and the sheer enjoyment of it all in a way that’s a little unexpected.

It feels kind of like starting a new relationship, even though it’s _not_ a relationship. Even though they’re just friends.

Look, Chloe _knows_ she has to learn to separate romantic feelings from platonic ones, but there’s just something about Raquel that feels… inevitable.

~~

Raquel pokes her head into Chloe’s classroom one day during lunch, hands tucked behind her back, smiling like she has a secret.

Chloe narrows her eyes at her suspiciously. “What’s behind your back? Are you here to kill me?”

Raquel rolls her eyes. “You’re very dramatic.” She produces a single red apple from behind her back, shining bright like a perfect cliché.

Chloe laughs and shakes her head. “You know I appreciate how seriously you’re taking this fairy tale theme, but I can’t just very well accept apples from strange women who feel threatened by my physical beauty.”

Raquel smirks. “Oh, someone thinks highly of herself.”

“I think I have every right.”

“You certainly do,” Raquel says quietly, almost a whisper. Chloe flushes but takes the apple anyway, rolling it between her hands.

Raquel clears her throat. “Well. Not an apple, then. Duly noted.” She pauses. Chloe looks up at her. “Then I guess… I was hoping maybe a drink?” Chloe’s surprise must be clearly written on her face, because Raquel is quick to backtrack, panic creeping up her face. “Oh God, I’m sorry. Did I completely misread this situation? I did, didn’t I?”

“No you… you didn’t. I guess I was just surprised.”

Raquel takes a breath. “Surprised that I asked you out?”

“Well… yeah. Doesn’t happen all that often. Guess I’m still getting used to it.”

Raquel gapes. “I find that _impossible_ to believe.”

“No, it’s true. I get hit on a fair amount, but few actual dates result.”

“Completely unacceptable. I’ll have to change that immediately.”

“Don’t I actually have to agree to a date with you for you to ask me on more?”

“Aren’t you about to?”

“You’re confident.”

“Yeah, I am.” Raquel rests her hands on Chloe’s desk and leans over into her personal space. Her face comes so close to Chloe’s, her breath tickling Chloe’s cheek, and for one startling moment Chloe thinks she’s about to be kissed in her classroom. Raquel bites her lip as her eyes skim Chloe’s face. “But I think you like it,” she whispers.

A fluttering explodes in Chloe’s stomach, a feeling that’s been absent so long she had almost forgotten the experience. She blushes under Raquel’s steady gaze and glances down at her shoes. Feels the urge to fiddle with the hem of her dress. “Well,” she says quietly, eyes still downcast to give the façade of demure innocence, “you’re not wrong.”

~~

Raquel gets more and more charming the longer Chloe talks to her — if that’s even possible. Her laugh is bright and her eyes are open, her expression always some indiscernible mixture of happiness and a little awe, as if she can’t quite believe her luck that she’s here, with Chloe; that they’re out together.

It makes Chloe flush and shift in her seat and smile behind her drink. It makes Chloe feel really, _really_ good.

They don’t even make it all the way through a first date before Chloe stills her with a hand on the arm and says, “Do you wanna get out of here?”

Raquel looks surprised but she quickly schools her features. “Are you sure?” She asks, voice low and quiet and eyes searching Chloe’s face for doubt or apprehension or insecurity.

Chloe bites her lip and nods, leans her head down and says in a low voice, right next to Raquel’s ear, “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

Surprise again, but this time something else, too. Appreciation, maybe? Respect? Anticipation? Hunger? “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Chloe?”

Chloe’s smile feels wolfish; predatory. “You have no idea.”

~~

“Holy _shit_ , Chloe.”

Chloe’s head appears from between Raquel’s thighs, a concerned expression on her face. “What? Was that too much?”

Raquel shakes her head vehemently. “No, fuck, _Christ_. Amazing. You’re _amazing_. I just… have you _done_ this before?”

Chloe bites her lip to stop herself from breaking into a smile. She feigns confusion. “What, gone down on a woman?” Raquel nods. “Duh.”

Raquel tips her head back and laughs. “So the whole innocent act was just… what? Meant to throw me off my game?’

“You were _very_ cute when you were trying to reassure me.”

“You let me make an _ass_ out of myself.”

“ _It’s okay to go slow, Chloe. We have all the time in the world. You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with_.”

Raquel slaps her on the shoulder. “I was trying to be considerate! Polite! Excuse me for showing even an _ounce_ of human decency and compassion.”

“I already said it was sweet! And it worked, didn’t it? You got me into your pants.”

“I still can’t believe you.”

“I thought it was funny.”

“And here I was, _nervous_ about what you would think if I took you back to my place after the first date.”

Chloe laughs. Nips at Raquel’s hip. “Yeah, definitely unnecessary. I would have fucked you in the bathroom, but you didn’t get up from the table the entire night.”

A sharp exhale. “Jesus Christ.”

Chloe tilts her head. “Do you want to… keep talking? Or—”

Raquel threads her fingers through Chloe’s hair and pushes her head back down.

They don’t talk much after that.

~~

She hasn’t spoken about Beca in almost two years. She goes days, even _weeks_ on end without thinking of her or Barden or the complete and utter shit show they created out of their lives.

It’s a bizarre experience; _remembering_ is a bizarre experience. She remembers the feelings, remembers the years and years of terribly weighted interactions and dodging communication and refusing to address feelings or problems; remembers the guilt associated with every decision she made.

She remembers what loving Beca felt like. She remembers what it felt like to get her heart broken. She remembers what it felt like to stand in that house and hear Jesse cry and feel the unendurable crushing swell of nausea and disgust and sickness rise in her.

She remembers the feelings, but she can’t _feel_ them, anymore. She remembers what it was like, remembers the moments leading up to the fallout and the moments after, but she doesn’t… when she thinks about those years she doesn’t feel what she felt then. Not anymore, at least.

It’s a bizarre experience.

It’s been two years since she’s spoken about Beca.

She’s never really discussed what happened between them, or what it did to her, or how completely it fucked with her mind and tore her inside out. Not with Aubrey or her parents or Emily or Beca.

So when Raquel asks her about it one day — laying on their backs in Raquel’s large apartment, Chloe’s head pillowed in her lap — it takes her completely by surprise.

“Chloe, can I ask you something?” Raquel starts innocently enough. Her fingers are running through Chloe’s hair, her nails scraping periodically against Chloe’s scalp. Chloe’s got her eyes closed, her shoulders completely relaxed. She hums in agreement, arching her neck to get closer to the satisfying feeling of fingers pulling through red locks.

Raquel is quiet for a few more seconds before she asks, “What happened in your last relationship?”

Chloe opens her eyes, squinting a little against the sunlight streaming in from one of the eastern-facing windows. “Who, Marcos? There’s really not much to talk about. I mean I told you, we dated for a few months but things started to get serious and with his daughter I just really didn’t feel—”

Raquel shakes her head. Bites her lip. “No, not… not that one. The one before it.”

Chloe freezes, her shoulders drawing up to her chin and her muscles completely rigid. “What are you talking about?”

Raquel continues to run her fingers through her hair, pretending not to notice Chloe’s sudden change in body language. Her hands move easily, slowly, in a calming and uniform rhythm. “You never talk about it. The only serious partner you’ve mentioned has been Marcos, but I know that you dated people before him. Probably at least one person seriously. Partly because you’ve told me I’m not the first girl you’ve been with.” Her fingers continue to move while Chloe stares straight above her, eyes wide and blank and unfocused on the space behind the slowly spinning ceiling fan. “Kind of a dead giveaway.”

Chloe swallows and nods but doesn’t say anything.

“So what happened with her?” Raquel asks, quietly.

Chloe blinks. Shakes her head only slightly. “Nothing, really.”

“Then how come you never talk about her?”

Chloe’s eyes flick to Raquel’s. She looks at her, upside down. “It’s not… something I like to talk about.”

Raquel holds her gaze steadily. “Will you tell me anyway?”

Chloe inhales deeply as she sits up. Raquel withdraws her hands slowly.

Chloe sighs, clenches her fists, and wraps her arms around herself. She stands from the bed, suddenly feeling restless. She walks towards the window, working the fabric of her shirt between her fingers.

When she speaks, its with her back to Raquel. There’s a mirror off in one corner of the room, and when she shifts she can see a flash of her reflection shifting too. She doesn’t look in that direction either.

“I’m not a very good person,” she says softly. She hears something shift behind her, but doesn’t turn around. “I wasn’t… I did a lot of bad things. For a long time. Most of college, actually. And it’s just… not something I like to think about. I didn’t like who I was, then. And I think I still have trouble with it.”

“Did you cheat on her?”

Chloe turns slowly. Leans her head against the cool glass of the window behind her. “No. No, I… I helped _her_ cheat.” A pause. “On her boyfriend.” Chloe closes her eyes. “For about three years.”

“Oh.”

Chloe sighs again. “I didn’t want you to know about it. I don’t like to talk about it. It… ended badly. And I didn’t want you knowing that about my past. I wanted you to… know me as I am, not as I was. And I didn’t think you’d like me very much if you knew.”

“I still like you, Chloe,” Raquel says quietly. Chloe closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to look at her. “That’s not changing.”

Chloe keeps her eyes closed. “Even though I did a really terrible thing?”

“We all make bad decisions. I don’t blame you for yours. Especially considering how much you seem to regret it.”

Chloe shakes her head. “I don’t know. I feel like it makes me even more of a terrible person because I know I _should_ regret it. _God,_ I hurt so many people. But I don’t… I don’t know if I _do_ regret it. I mean, I loved her.” Chloe wraps her arms around herself. “Look I didn’t really ever want to talk about this with you and I feel like I really need to cry right now and I’d rather do that on my own. I don’t mean to kick you out but I really need to be on my own, right now.” _Give her an out._ That’s all that she can think. It’s what Chloe does best, after all. Let down the people she cares about. Best to give Raquel a way out of it now, while she still can. Before they get too deep into this thing.

 Raquel eyes her steadily for a few moments. She looks to be weighing her words.

Chloe doesn’t want to deal with this right now. She’s not looking for pity, she’s not looking for a lecture, she’s not looking to ‘discuss’ this with anyone, not even her girlfriend. She doesn’t want to deal with this. She just wants to be alone and she wants to be able to cry and scream into her pillow and not feel completely guilty for it and if Raquel would just _leave_ and stop looking at her like that she’d be able to—

“My dad died.”

Chloe blinks, her arms falling away from her sides. “What?”

Raquel nods. “Last summer. That’s why I was gone all of last year. My dad died, so I flew back to Kentucky for the funeral and then I just… _stayed_. My mom, she’s been sick on and off for the past year, and it’s only gotten worse recently.” Raquel looks down at her hands, folded in her lap, gripped tightly together, but not tight enough for Chloe to miss how they shake. “I didn’t want her to be alone, you know? Not after Dad.”

Chloe inches forward. Slips onto the bed. Slips her hand between Raquel’s knees. “I’m so sorry,” she says quietly, unsure of how to proceed. She feels an ache deep in her chest and the strong urge to kiss her girlfriend, but she doesn’t. “I didn’t… you never talk about it.”

“Talking about it can be _so_ hard, Chloe. You know that better than anyone.”

And yeah, she really, _really_ does.

Chloe swallows thickly. “Thank you for telling me.”

Raquel nods. “It was time. Besides, you shared something about your past you didn’t want to talk about, so I offered something, too. To make us equal.”

Chloe leans forward and kisses her softly. She pulls back and rests her forehead against Raquel’s, nudges her nose with hers. “That’s very sweet of you.”

“Yes I’m often told I’m sweet.”

Chloe chuckles. “Thank you for telling me, though. For real.” The smile slips off her face as she turns serious. “I’m so sorry about your dad, Elle. I really am.”

Raquel smiles but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “And I’m sorry about the girl who broke your heart. But whatever happened with her, it brought you here.” She slides her hand into Chloe’s and threads their fingers together. “So despite everything, I’m also gonna thank her for doing it.”

Chloe smiles, closes her eyes, and kisses Raquel again.

She allows herself to consider, for perhaps the first time, whether or not she can ever feel _thankful_ for everything that happened with Beca.

As she kisses Raquel, bringing a hand up to cup the back of her neck when Raquel’s tongue flicks out against her lips, she thinks, for the first time, that yeah. She thinks she probably _could_ learn to feel thankful for all of it.

Not today.

But someday, maybe.

~~

It’s only after numerous conversations with Raquel — mostly at night, mostly with the lights out, mostly with Raquel’s quiet voice murmuring softly in Chloe’s sleepy ear, nails dragging loose patterns along her naked back — that Chloe agrees to start seeing a therapist. She isn’t sure it’s something she actually wants to do or even really pursue, so even after she quietly and hesitantly agrees to “look into it,” she doesn’t actually start until two weeks later.

She walks into her classroom two weeks after their muted conversation to find a single paper on her desk. The sticky note stuck to the top left corner reads: _For whenever you’re ready._ She recognizes Raquel’s handwriting immediately — its measured, blocky text easily discernable.

It’s just a printed out Word Document with names, addresses, and phone numbers, but Chloe knows at once what all of the names have in common without having to do a single Google Search. She sits down heavily in her chair and thumbs at the edge of the paper in quiet contemplation for twenty-five minutes before the first student walking into the room startles her out of her trance.

During her lunch hour, Chloe takes a deep breath and dials the first number on the list.

~~

This time around, she actually goes to her appointments. She listens when Dr. Walker — a kind older woman with a widow’s peak shock of white hair and dark, honest eyes — asks her questions and she tries to answer as honestly as she can.

_Yes, I’m finally feeling fulfilled in my profession._

_No, I don’t really miss my home._

_I guess because it has a lot of bad memories associated with it. Depression. Streaks of inactivity. Guilt._

_Guilt over… I guess my relationship in college. If you can even count it as a relationship. I guess I can’t._

_She had a boyfriend. But I still had an affair with her for four years._

_No. No yeah, I guess you’re right. Yeah._ We _had an affair for four years._

_If you want me to be honest, then yeah, it made me feel like absolute shit._

Admittedly, she might be a little hostile at first. But that comes with the territory. At least she’s actually _going_ to her appointments this time.

~~

Every time she goes back, it gets easier.

They meet three times over the course of a month before Dr. Walker asks her if she’s ever considered using anti-depressants. Chloe haltingly admits that she was prescribed some about a year ago but never bothered to take them. But, when asked, she agrees that she’d like to try again.

So Dr. Walker sends her off for a consultation with a psychiatrist who talks to her for about an hour and a half before agreeing to a medication plan.

This time, when she fills her prescription, she actually starts taking the pills.

~~

It takes some time; it takes _months_ , actually. Months of fluctuations and moderating doses and multiple check-ins and shocking and sudden mood swings and a little weight gain and a lot of irritability and more than a few snapping arguments with Raquel, but when all is said and done, Chloe _does_ actually start to feel a lot better.

~~

The kids notice that there’s something going on between them. Or at least, some of the kids do. Or at least, one of them does. Or, actually, Raquel tells her. Kind of.

Chloe supposes it’s her own fault, given the fact that she’s always been pretty terrible at keeping her emotions in check and what with the slow but steady uptick in her mood over the past three to four months. Her intentions have gotten a lot more… _blatant_.

But Chloe can’t help it. Raquel is beautiful and looks sexy as hell standing in front of a chalkboard with her reading glasses on and her hair pulled back and off of her face, leaving her long neck smooth and exposed and inviting…

Chloe can’t help but lean against the doorframe for a few minutes before Raquel’s lunch break starts, a stupid silly smile on her face as she watches her girlfriend teach a classroom full of ten year-olds about bridges. (Which is, in Chloe’s humble opinion, a completely ridiculous unit that should _not_ have been dedicated five full weeks over the course of the semester, but who is she to judge? She just teaches music.)

Raquel catches her eye as she walks between groups and shoots Chloe a little wink over her shoulder.

Chloe can’t help but grin wider.

It’s almost four months into their relationship when Chloe is approached one day during her lunch break by a shy, shuffling student. Chloe knows her well. Her name is Katie, and she’s a beautiful developing soprano. Chloe has been eager to push her towards expanding her musical studies. She hopes that Katie will join the middle school choir next year when she’s in the sixth grade.

So when Katie approaches her one day during Chloe’s lunch break, she assumes it’s to talk about chorus or singing or their music classes.

Chloe doesn’t know why she’s there, because the kids aren’t usually allowed to leave the cafeteria during lunch time except to go to the bathroom, so it’s a little weird that she’s here now, standing in front of Chloe looking remarkably embarrassed.

Chloe’s alone — one of the few rare occasions where Raquel has to actually do _work_ on her off-period — so when Katie poses a timid, “Um, excuse me, Miss Beale?” Chloe smiles warmly back at her.

“Yes, Katie? How can I help you?”

Katie is chewing on the thumb of her right hand, a nervous habit that Chloe’s noticed her exhibit often (usually when she’s asked to sing in front of the other students). “Um…” Katie says, her face red and her eyes darting back and forth. Her words are muffled behind the hand pressed to her mouth. “Are you…” She tries again, shifting from side to side on her battered sneakers. “Are you dating Miss Thomas?”

Chloe blinks very quickly a few times. She opens her mouth. Closes it again. Clears her throat. “What makes you ask that?” She says slowly, carefully. She can’t be fired for being in a relationship with a woman — not in Colorado, at least — but she’s not blind to the political climate of the country. She understands that there are more than a few parents who might object to two of their kid’s teachers dating, especially if both of those teachers are women.

But at the same time, she obviously doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with being in a same-sex relationship, and she doesn’t believe in hiding her personal life from the kids she teaches because they’re “too young to understand” or anything like that.

She’s a professional. Her personal life should stay personal because she firmly believes in keeping her work and home separate. But not because she’s embarrassed.

She’s not about to _lie_ to Katie. Not about Raquel.

Katie blushes a dark red and looks down, kicking the toe of her shoe against the shiny linoleum floor. “Well, Zack was telling me about how he has two moms, but then Lizzy said that kids _can’t_ have two moms because everyone needs a mom and a dad. But then _Zack_ said that that wasn’t true, because _he_ has two moms and no dads. But then Lizzy said that he was lying and then Zack got _really_ mad at her and he almost started crying but then Miss Thomas came over and she said that kids _can_ have two moms, or they can have two dads, or maybe a mom and dad or just one mom or just one dad.”

She pauses to take a deep breath and Chloe looks at her, half-amused and half-impressed at her ability to speak so quickly almost without breathing. She nods while Katie bounces between her feet, her eyes wide like she’s expecting Chloe to say something. “Yes,” she says, “Miss Thomas is right. Kids can have two parents, one parent, or sometimes no parents.”

Katie nods enthusiastically, her embarrassment falling away from her as her story continues to pick up speed. “ _Right_ , that’s what Miss Thomas said. But then Lizzy said, ‘ _Well how do you know that kids can have two moms? Nobody I know has two moms!’_ and then Miss Thomas said that if _she_ ever has any kids, her kid is going to have two moms because she’s going to have a wife. And then Zack asked who she was going to marry and she said no one at the moment but then I remembered that she’s always driving you home from school and you always come to our classroom so you can have lunch with her and so I thought that maybe… maybe she was gonna marry you.”

“I…” Chloe blinks quickly, feeling extraordinarily rattled. “Well no, Katie. Miss Thomas and I aren’t getting married.”

“Oh,” Katie’s shoulders slump, immediately discouraged.

Chloe pauses and weighs her next few words carefully before she admits, “But yes, we are dating.”

“Really? Oh that’s so _exciting_!” She bounces vertically now, her hands clapping together with excitement.

Chloe laughs. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“How come you haven’t told us?”

“Well… I guess because Miss Thomas and I like our privacy. We just don’t really want everyone at school to know that we’re together just yet.”

Katie’s eyes bug out comically. “Oh,” she says, hyper serious, voice low as she leans forward. “So I should keep it a secret?”

“I think Miss Thomas and I would really appreciate that.”

Katie mimes zipping her lips tight shut. She twists her fingers as if locking a key, and then throws her arm back, pretending to toss her imaginary key over her shoulder.

Chloe smiles at her. “Thank you, Katie. You should probably get back to lunch, now.”

Katie grins widely and bounds out of the room and Chloe has to sit and breathe deeply and put her face in her hands, just for a few moments.

~~

Chloe doesn’t want to say that it’s _easy_ , because it’s not. Their relationship isn’t easy.

But it’s a hell of a lot _easier_ than the rest of her life has been, recently.

And she thinks, quite honestly, that she might be falling in love. Or at least well on the way to falling in love.

And, somehow, it doesn’t terrify her.

That in and of itself is pretty extraordinary.

**


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Almost exactly three years from when she last saw Beca, Chloe finds a reason to call her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beca’s back, y’all!
> 
> Also can you believe how quickly I updated this? Because I certainly can't.
> 
> As always, if you want to dish, talk, yell, and/or scream at me, feel free to talk to me on [ tumblr.](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

Almost exactly three years from when she last saw Beca, Chloe finds a reason to call her.

She doesn’t plan on doing it. She doesn’t even think about it before it happens. She just… she’s pulling into a parking space outside her favorite Mexican restaurant, already running a little late. She shoots off a quick text to Raquel, telling her she’s right outside, but as she moves to turn off her car, something on the radio makes her pause.

There’s something about this song she recognizes, something that she thinks is familiar. She can’t be sure, because she’s almost positive that she’s never heard it before, but before she can think about it she’s tapping her foot and bobbing her head.

And then before she can blink it’s been two more minutes and she’s even _later_ than she expected. But she thinks Raquel will understand, because honestly getting caught up in her car listening to one of her favorite songs is an unfortunate habit Chloe’s picked up and Raquel expects it of her at this point.

A voice cuts through the car as Chloe’s hand goes to her key and it’s like her life flips upside down in the span of a few short seconds.

It’s been three years since they’ve spoken but the radio announcer is saying, “And that was _‘You’ve Got Me,’_ by Jacob Collier and Beca Mitchell” and Chloe screams so loudly at her dash that people in the car next to her look over with open concern, but she can’t stop screaming because _someone just said Beca’s name on the radio._

She has to talk to her. She _has_ to.

She dials the number without even thinking about it, and it’s only later that she realizes she felt almost nothing while she did it. No giddy excitement, no sinking stomach, no pounding pulse or sickly nerves. Nothing but excitement.

(It’s only later that she notices.)

She calls her without thinking.

In only two short rings, Beca’s voice cuts through Chloe’s phone from hundreds of miles away. _“Ch-Chloe?”_ She can hear the trepidation in her voice, the fear, the insecurity.

She’s too excited to address it. All she can do is squeal into the phone. “I just heard your song! They just played your _song_ on the _radio_! Oh my God, this is _huge,_ Beca!”

There’s a short pause from the other end of the line. Chloe bounces in the seat of her car. _“You…_ what _?”_ Beca asks. Chloe pictures her shaking her head, trying to catch up with Chloe’s almost nonsensical train of thought.

Chloe rolls her eyes. Some things never change. “ _’You’ve Got Me’_ just played on broadcast radio in _Colorado_ , Beca!” She exclaims as explanation. “You’ve made it! You’re _famous_!”

 _“Well I’m not…”_ Beca clears her throat, _“I mean I don’t know about_ famous _—”_

“Oh my God, Mitchell, shut up and take the compliment, will you?”

Beca laughs. _Christ_ , Chloe’s missed that sound. She hadn’t even realized. _“Alright already. God, when did you get so bossy?”_

“Excuse you I have _always_ been bossy.” Beca laughs again and Chloe grins widely.

A silence falls between them. Not uncomfortable, not really, but unsure. Like they’re trying to figure out if they still know each other, if they still have the freedom to talk openly, if they should address the fact that they haven’t spoken in three years.

 _“I didn’t—”_ Beca cuts herself off quickly.

Chloe settles back into her seat. “What were you going to say?” She prods, gently.

It’s almost shocking how calm she is. She feels no anger, no animosity, no deep, irreparable hurt. Just calm.

Beca makes a noise in the back of her throat. Chloe can hear a shuffling through the phone, like she’s shifting positions. _“I didn’t expect you to call.”_

“Honestly, I didn’t expect to call. I just… heard your name come out of my radio. And I felt like I had to, you know?”

 _“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”_ A long pause, a thick silence. _“I’m really glad you did, though. Call, I mean.”_ Chloe smiles at that, but before she can say anything in response it’s like Beca loses her nerve. She changes topic quickly. (Chloe pictures her somewhere far away, blushing as she picks at the skin around her cuticle.) _“You’re in Colorado?”_ Beca asks without preamble.

Chloe straightens up. Drums her fingers against her steering wheel. “Yeah. I live here, now.”

_“What do you… what happened to North Carolina?”_

“North Carolina was too hot. And I wanted to see some mountains.”

 _“Oh.”_ Beca’s quiet again. Chloe waits for her to pick up the nerve to speak. _“How long…?”_

“Two years.” A sharp intake of breath from Beca’s end of the line. Chloe’s heart jumps once, just once, before it settles again. She swallows against the feeling in the back of her throat, pushing it back down. “I’m a teacher. Elementary school. Third grade mostly. I mean… well I teach them _music_. So. Not really _molding young minds_ or anything, but—”

 _“No that—”_ Beca cuts her off, her voice quivering at the edge of some of her words— “ _That’s amazing. You love kids. I always knew you’d be amazing with kids.”_

Chloe smiles and it barely twinges of melancholy for the future she once might have had. “You think?”

_“I think it’s exactly where you belong.”_

Chloe would have to agree with her.

Another silence. Chloe glances at her car’s clock and jumps when she notices the time. She’s almost twenty minutes late to meet Raquel and she’s been sitting in her car outside the restaurant for more than ten minutes. “Beca, I’m sorry but I’ve gotta run. I have a dinner date I’m already late for.”

 _“Oh yeah, yeah of course. No worries. It was really,_ really _great to hear from you, Chloe. I’m really glad you called.”_

Chloe smiles and says, “I’m glad I called, too,” and it’s honestly the truth.

She can hear Beca pause on the other end of the line. A deep inhale, like she’s building up the courage to say something important. Chloe waits patiently for her to speak, without trepidation. _“Do you think… can I call you again?”_

Chloe’s smile grows. “I think I would really like that.”

The relief in Beca’s voice is palpable. _“Awesome. Great. Okay, so I’ll… I’ll call you?”_

“Please do.”

_“Okay. Okay great. Yeah. I’ll talk to you later, Chloe.”_

“Bye, Beca.”

She waits a few seconds before she hangs up and notices that Beca does, too. Like she doesn’t want to cut their conversation short.

She waits for Chloe to hang up first.

~~

 “I called Beca today.”

Raquel looks up from the wine list she’s been perusing thoughtfully. She sets it down in front of her, her brows furrowing only slightly. “You did?” She’s not angry. Chloe can tell she isn’t angry. She’s not jealous. Just curious. Maybe a little worried. “And how did that go?”

Chloe tilts her head, thinking it through. “Really, really well, actually. Yeah. It went really well.”

Raquel smiles. “I’m so glad, Chloe.”

“Yeah.” Chloe nods. “Yeah, me too.”

Raquel picks the wine list up again. “So what made you call? Something Dr. Walker suggested?”

“No,” Chloe laughs. “Actually, you’ll never guess what happened while I was in the car on the way here.”

“Oh is that why you left me sitting here alone for twenty minutes? You know the wait staff thought I had been stood up.”

Chloe laughs and reaches across the table, threading their fingers together. “I’m sorry I made you wait.”

“It’s fine. Our waitress offered to pay for my drinks because she felt sorry for me. I had to explain that my girlfriend is just chronically unable to show up to our dates on time.”

Chloe laughs again. Shakes her head ruefully. “I am _trying_ to tell you an amazing story here, babe. Do you want to listen or would you rather keep complaining about me?”

Raquel sighs dramatically. “Well I _guess_ I’ll listen to your amazing story,” she teases, “but only if you pay for my meal.”

“It’s my turn to pay anyway, so deal.”

Raquel grins. Flips her hand so that her palm interlocks with Chloe’s. “Deal.”

Chloe squeezes her hand and leans across the table. “Okay, so, I was pulling into my parking space…”

**

True to her word, Beca calls her before the week is over. And they start talking. It isn’t really on purpose, but they start talking.

At first it’s sporadic, without any sort of schedule. But after the third time in a month and a half that Beca tries to call her while she’s in class Chloe just rolls her eyes and asks her, “Are you free Tuesday nights?”

 _“I don’t… I mean I_ can _be, yeah.”_

“Okay, so call me on Tuesdays. It’ll be a standing phone date. That way you can stop interrupting me while I’m at work.”

Beca’s voice is sheepish when she mumbles, _“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I guess I’ve really forgotten what school hours are. It’s been so long.”_

Chloe rolls her eyes. “It hasn’t been _that_ long.”

_“Since Elementary School? Are you joking?”_

Chloe ignores her. “So, Tuesdays work for you?”

_“Tuesdays work.”_

“Okay. I get home around five every day, but you probably work later and you’re an hour behind me, so… call me at seven your time?”

_“I can do that.”_

So while it starts out not really being on purpose, before long Beca is a scheduled part of Chloe’s life, like her Saturday morning yoga classes or her standing Thursday night dates with Raquel.

It’s so strange, how quickly Beca slips back into being a regular part of her life.

Chloe’s missed it. She honestly has.

**

About two weeks into their weekly phone calls (and about two months since Chloe first reached out) they’re trading work stories when Beca, almost out of the blue, asks her with unease in her voice: _“So, um… are you seeing anyone?”_

Chloe blinks, taken aback by the question.

Beca is quick to continue. _“Sorry. Sorry, I know that’s a really inappropriate question because it’s none of my business but I_ swear _I’m only asking as your friend. You just mentioned you were running late for a dinner date the first time you called but it’s been a while and you haven’t really mentioned anyone and so I thought—”_

“No, no I get that,” Chloe cuts her off, wanting to stop Beca’s rambling. “You don’t have to apologize for asking. You’re curious about my life. I get it.” Chloe bites her lip. Fidgets with a book on her bedside table. It’s Raquel’s. She must have left it there the last time she stayed over. “But to answer your question: yeah, I am seeing someone.”

Beca exhales slowly, and if Chloe isn’t mistaken she almost sounds _relieved_ when she next speaks. _“I figured you would be,”_ she says softly. Not quietly, not sadly. Just softly. _“You’re too amazing to stay single. Half of Denver is probably pining over you right now.”_

Chloe rolls her eyes. Settles back against her headboard. “You overestimate how often I go out.”

Chloe imagines Beca smiling, somewhere in LA, alone in an apartment Chloe can’t quite picture. _“So what’s their name? The person you’re dating,”_ she adds as unnecessary explanation.

“Her name is Raquel. She’s a teacher at my school.”

Beca hums, low in her throat. _“Is she nice?”_ She asks. _“Good enough for you? Do I need to come over to Denver and crack some skulls?”_

Chloe laughs. “No, you don’t need to beat anyone up. She’s… she’s beautiful. And she’s funny, and kind, and she likes science a _lot_ which is terrible but I forgive her for it.”

 _“It sounds like you’ve got a really good thing going, Chlo.”_ Chloe’s heart stutters in her chest. Just for a moment. _“I’m really happy for you.”_

“You’ve said.”

_“Yeah, well I’m saying it again. Just take the compliment, dork.”_

Chloe smiles, and though she knows Beca can’t see her, she imagines that she can tell all the same.

**

 **Chloe (4:43 p.m.)**  
_Seeing a movie with Raquel tonight.  
Reschedule?_

**Beca (4:50 p.m.)**  
_no problem!  
enjoy your movie_

 **Beca (4:53 p.m.)  
** _also, before i forget_

 **Beca (4:53 p.m.)**  
_You gotta let me meet this girl_

 **Beca (4:54 p.m.)**  
_otherwise i’m gonna think_  
_you made her up_

Chloe laughs and rolls her eyes at her phone, locking the screen and sliding it back into her pocket.

Raquel wraps her arms around Chloe’s waist from behind and presses a light kiss to her cheek. “What’s so funny?” She asks, nose brushing against the shell of Chloe’s ear.

Chloe hums. “Nothing, really.” She tips her head back and lets it rest against the other woman’s shoulder. Raquel presses a few more kisses to Chloe’s cheek, her jaw, the curve of her neck. Chloe arches into the feeling, a slow and lazy smile on her face. “Beca thinks I’m making you up.”

Raquel chuckles, the sound warm against Chloe’s neck. “Because I’m so beautiful and incredible that I couldn’t _possibly_ be real?”

Chloe turns in her arms. Bends her head just a little to claim Raquel’s lips with her own in a soft kiss that smells like her girlfriend’s vanilla lotion. “That,” she says, pulling away and leaving Raquel with a goofy smile on her face, “and the fact that she’s never seen you.”

“Well, we’ll have to change that, won’t we?”

Chloe blinks, a little surprised. “What, you want to meet her?”

Raquel shrugs. “Sure,” she says, pulling Chloe a little closer to her. She kisses her again, softly, and Chloe melts into it. “She’s an important part of your life. One of your best friends. I’d love to meet her.”

“Even after—”

“I know about your past with her, Chlo. It doesn’t bother me. It happened a really long time ago.”

Chloe shakes her head, hardly able to believe what she’s hearing. “You’re… absolutely the coolest girlfriend ever. You know that, right?”

Raquel smiles. “I’ve been told.” She kisses Chloe quickly, her lips tapping once against Chloe’s mouth, then her nose, then her forehead. “ _And_ I bought us the tickets for tonight,” she says as she slips from Chloe’s arms, heading for her purse on the counter. “How great am I?”

Chloe feels a warmth in her chest, the likes of which she hasn’t felt in years. “The best,” she says softly, watching her girlfriend move through Chloe’s apartment like it’s her own.

She feels the words bubbling up in the back of her throat. She hasn’t said them in a long, long time, and hasn’t said them to a romantic partner in longer. She’s not sure she’s ever been so comfortably in love with someone like she is with Raquel, right here and now, in her tiny apartment in Denver, but suddenly all she wants to do is tell Raquel exactly how she feels. She can’t keep it in any longer.

She can’t help it.

“Hey, Raquel?” She calls as she watches her girlfriend slip into her bedroom, presumably to dig around for one of Chloe’s sweaters to wear to the theater.

“What’s up?” She calls back, and Chloe can’t see her, but she pictures her with her head buried in Chloe’s closet, sifting through her hangers until she finds the sweater she’s after. (Chloe knows the one, because she knows it’s Raquel’s favorite, because she’s had to steal it back from her apartment countless times. It’s white, thick and woolen. Chloe’s parents had gotten it for her for Christmas her first year in Colorado. It’s wonderfully soft and too big on Raquel, but she says she likes it, likes being swallowed up in Chloe’s clothes, likes the way the sleeves hang down past her hands. She says it makes her feel warm.)

Maybe it’s because she can’t see her that Chloe feels like she has the courage to say her next words. Not having to look Raquel in the eye, not having to actually face up to the severity of the words about to slip from her lips… it makes it a lot easier. “I love you,” she says, and she’s surprised by how even the words are, how easily she says them, how she doesn’t feel like shaking or crying or breaking down after they’ve left her mouth.

It’s quiet in Chloe’s bedroom, and she clenches her hands into fists behind the kitchen counter to try and make herself act and look calmer than she feels.

She doesn’t feel like she’s about to break down, but still. This is kind of a big moment for her. And it’s making a lot of emotions swirl inside of her that she’s not sure she’s totally ready to deal with, but…

But then Raquel pokes her head out of Chloe’s bedroom door and the image is so silly that Chloe has to laugh. “Baby,” she says with a silly grin on her face, wide and open and happy, just happy; nothing more or less. “I love you, too.”

Chloe breathes a sigh of relief before she can stop herself, but it only makes Raquel smile wider. She tugs Chloe’s sweater over her head as she makes her way back to the kitchen. She swoops Chloe up into an embrace that hugs her in every possible way.

She swings Chloe around in a circle and Chloe shrieks, giddy as she spins around her own kitchen in her girlfriend’s arms.

When Raquel finally sets her down and kisses her, it feels… incredible. Exhilarating. Like everything Chloe’s ever wanted.

It feels a lot like coming home.

**

 **Chloe (8:27 a.m.)  
** _Merry Christmas!_

 **Beca (8:42 a.m.)**  
_merry christmas!  
__send me a pic of your tree!_

**

The first time she video calls Beca she doesn’t really think about it. She doesn’t plan it. And, to be honest, she doesn’t even really _mean_ to do it.

It’s been a couple weeks of phone calls, of catching up, of stalking Facebooks and Instagrams and exchanging sporadic texts.

Chloe gets a notification on her phone. (Okay so _maybe_ she set up a Google Alert for ‘Beca Mitchell.’ She’s nosy. Sue her.)

She’s sitting in her classroom eating her lunch, the kids all outside laughing and screaming and (presumably) causing mayhem, when she reads the Alert on her phone and almost chokes on her sandwich.

She fumbles with her phone, pulling up Beca’s contact information, her fingers scrambling to hit the ‘call’ button on her screen.

She presses the phone to her ear when she hears the distinctive sound of the FaceTime ringtone through her phone. She pulls it away from her face, pauses, thinks about hanging up and trying again but then she figures, _Fuck it._ She really needs to talk to Beca like _right at this moment_ and she doesn’t have the patience to hang up and call her back.

Beca’s face appears on her phone, a little blurry and a little out of focus, but still there and present and _right there_.

She’s frowning a little. _“Why are you calling me in the middle of a school day?”_ She asks, clearly confused. She squints and brings her phone closer to her face. _“Oh my God, is that your classroom? Let me see!”_

Chloe shakes her head. “Beca, this is serious, pay attention.”

Beca pulls back, her frown deepening. _“What happened? What’s wrong? What’s the emergency?”_

Chloe sighs deeply and glares at Beca through her phone camera. “Did Nick Jonas give an interview where he said your song is his, and I quote, ‘ _go to workout jam_ ’? And then did you completely forget to tell me about this important piece of information wherein my ultimate teenage crush _knows who you are_?”

Beca pulls a face. _“What are you talking about?”_

Chloe makes a noise of frustration. “Seriously Beca, do you even _have_ a publicist?”

_“Of course I have a publicist.”_

“Okay, well fire your publicist, because they are doing a _terrible_ job of keeping you up to date! Especially when _Nick Jonas_ mentions you!” Chloe rests her head in one hand. “This might honestly be the biggest day of your life. This is it. You’ve _made_ it.”

Beca laughs. _“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”_

“Ridiculous, but _very_ proud of my friend. Am I going to have to tell you every time something amazing happens in your own life, or will you start Googling yourself every once in a while?”

_“You know how much I hate to read about myself online.”_

“Okay, _every_ celebrity says that but I _know_ you all must be lying. You’re seriously _never_ curious about what the Internet says about you? You have your own _Wikipedia page_ , Beca.”

Beca waves her off. _“I never read any of that stuff.”_

“Sure, says the girl with her own Wikipedia page,” Chloe grumbles.

Beca laughs again. “ _How did you even hear about that Nick Jonas thing?”_

Chloe pauses. “Okay… Don’t laugh.”

_“I’m not gonna laugh.”_

“I promise I’m not a stalker.”

Beca gasps dramatically. _“Oh my God, are you having me followed?”_

Chloe rolls her eyes. “No. Stop it. I set up a Google Alert for your name. I get an email every time you’re mentioned in an article online.”

Beca’s eyes widen and she bursts out laughing. _“Dude, that’s nuts! I don’t think even my_ parents _are that invested in my career.”_

Chloe huffs. “Well it’s not _my_ fault your dad doesn’t know how to do Google Alerts.”

Beca grins and it’s only then — several full minutes into their conversation — that Chloe realizes this is the first time she’s seen her in three years.

Beca seems to come to the same realization almost as soon as Chloe does, because her eyes soften at the edges and her smile becomes a little smaller and a little more contemplative. _“Hey,”_ she says, her lips quirking up more on one side than the other, _“you video called me.”_

Chloe nods. Bites her lip. “I did.”

_“You look really good, Chloe.”_

“Thanks. You look… basically the same.”

 _“Actually, I have several new tattoos and I’ve taken most of the piercings out,”_ she tilts her head so Chloe can see her ears. _“See?”_

“Those aren’t like… _big_ changes, though. You haven’t dyed your hair or anything.”

_“I went kind of reddish-blonde for a while. But it really didn’t stick.”_

Chloe’s eyes widen. “Oh _please_ tell me you have pictures.”

 _“Ugh,”_ Beca groans, _“fine. I’ll text them to you after I get off work.”_

The bell rings, startling them from their conversation. Chloe looks up at the clock hanging above her door and shakes her head. “God, I have to go. Recess just ended.” She looks sadly down at her half-eaten sandwich. “You made me skip my lunch.”

_“I’m not the one who called! Don’t blame this on me!”_

Chloe waves her off. “Yeah, sure. Make excuses.”

Beca rolls her eyes again but she’s smiling, wide and open like she never did in college. _“You’re a crazy person. Go take care of the little monsters.”_

“They aren’t monsters.”

_“They’re ten. That’s basically demon-age.”_

“Good _bye_ , Beca,” Chloe says emphatically.

Beca laughs. _“Bye, Chloe.”_

When she disconnects the call, Chloe’s smiling.

She smiles for the rest of the day.

**

FaceTime starts to become their predominant mode of communication. Their weekly Tuesday night phone calls turn into weekly Tuesday night video calls, and Chloe feels like it’s a pretty smooth transition, all in all.

Chloe hears her front door open and she pops her head up from the couch, her laptop balanced on her knees. Raquel pushes the door open with her hip, juggling a few grocery bags and the spare key Chloe had given her a few weeks ago.

“Hey babe,” she calls, “I got stuff for dinner. You hungry?”

“Starving,” Chloe calls back, sitting up a little straighter on the couch. “Come here!” She waves her over excitedly. “Come meet Beca!”

 _“No, Chloe,”_ Beca protests through the computer screen, _“I haven’t brushed my hair. She’s gonna judge me.”_

“Stop it, Beca. You look _fine_.”

Raquel drops the bags on Chloe’s counter and makes her way across the room. She bends and pecks Chloe softly on the lips, and whispers, “Hi,” quietly in greeting. Chloe smiles up at her and pulls her down for another, slightly longer kiss.

_“Gross, guys. You have company over.”_

Chloe laughs as Raquel pulls away. She moves around the back of the couch, setting herself next to Chloe. She smiles at Beca’s moving picture. “Hi, Beca,” she says, giving a little wave. “It’s really nice to meet you. Chloe’s told me a lot about you.”

Beca stares at her for a few seconds, just long enough for Chloe to worry that maybe she made a big mistake, bringing Raquel over, introducing them, rekindling her friendship with Beca, trying to get things back to normal between the two of them, scheduling weekly phone calls and video chats because oh God, what was she thinking, trying to introduce her new girlfriend to her ex? Who thinks that’s a good idea?

She’s just starting to feel a little panicked when Beca finally says, almost reverently, _“Wow, you’re beautiful.”_

The relief floods through Chloe’s body faster than she can blink. She laughs, a little shakily, and says, “Don’t hit on my girlfriend, Beca,” with as much mock-venom as she can muster (which, admittedly, isn’t a lot).

Raquel laughs. “Please don’t stop. I love compliments.” Chloe rolls her eyes. Raquel leans closer to the screen, squinting slightly. “Chloe tells me you’re famous.”

Beca flushes. _“Stop telling people I’m famous, Chloe. I am_ not _famous.”_

“Don’t listen to her, Elle. She’s _definitely_ famous. She has, like… 50,000 Instagram followers. Nick Jonas knows who she is.”

Raquel’s eyes widen. “Oh my God, can you get me in with Beyoncé?”

 _“Dude,_ I _can’t even get in with Beyoncé. Besides, Cynthia Rose has dibs on Bee and Nicki Minaj. Emily’s got dibs on Taylor Swift, Lorde, and any of the guys from One Direction.”_

“You’re giving all the good ones away to our friends! Beca!” Chloe whines. “That’s not _fair_!”

_“You snooze you lose, Chloe. Not my problem you haven’t tried to exploit me for my fame yet.”_

Raquel laughs and joins Beca in trading embarrassing stories at Chloe’s expense. Which, to be fair, _was_ kind of expected, but she it still makes her shift in her seat and bury her head in a pillow a few times over the course of the call.

Chloe’s not sure how she feels about her girlfriend and her ex (is Beca her ex? Does that even count?) getting along so well, but she figures it’s better than them hating each other. And it’s kind of a relief, now that they know each other, now that everything’s out in the open and above board and everyone knows everyone involved. It’s a relief, especially with how well things are going with Raquel and how well things are going with Beca. It’s really, _really_ nice to have them get along, no jealousy or animosity between them, no kind of misguided rivalry. Her girlfriend and her (maybe?) best friend, talking and laughing together like they’ve known each other for years.

It’s such a relief. Chloe has a hard time explaining just how much.

They stay on the call with Beca for another forty minutes before Chloe makes them all hang up so she and Raquel can finally eat dinner (it’s approaching 9 p.m. and they have school the next morning and she gets cranky if she goes too long without eating).

Beca texts her, after they hang up.

 **Beca (8:49 p.m.)  
** _she’s really amazing, chloe._

**Beca (8:50 p.m.)  
** _i can see why you love her._

**

A year into their relationship, right in the heart of summer, everything changes.

Chloe doesn’t see it coming. She couldn’t have possibly seen it coming.

They’re in bed together, bare skin pressed against bare skin, curled up under one sheet. It’s the middle of the night, the streets outside completely silent.

Raquel’s head is pillowed on Chloe’s chest, her arm slung loose around Chloe’s waist. Her fingers dance an intricate pattern on Chloe’s hip bone.

Chloe’s eyes are fluttering closed. She’s dipping in and out of sleep when Raquel’s quiet voice drags her slowly up.

“I need to tell you something, Chlo.” She says, her breath warm as it mingles with Chloe’s.

Chloe presses a kiss to the crown of her head. “Yeah?” She mumbles, still somewhere halfway between being asleep and awake. “What’s up?”

Raquel is quiet for a few more seconds. She shifts a little on top of Chloe. Presses a kiss to her collarbone. “I’ve been talking to my brother a lot these past few weeks,” she whispers. Continues to use her nails to trace shapes onto Chloe’s side.

She takes a deep breath. “It’s my mom, Chloe. She’s gotten worse.”

Chloe blinks a few times in the darkness. Frowns. “What?” She sits up and reaches over to turn on the light. Raquel comes into focus, sheet wrapped around her bare chest and a sad sort of half-smile on her face. Chloe feels her heart rate increase. Her palms start to sweat. “What do you mean, ‘gotten worse’?”

Raquel runs a hand through her hair. “I’ve known for a couple weeks now that things were taking a turn. I just… I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for sure what the situation was.”

“Okay.” Chloe takes a steading breath. “Okay.” She stands up and heads to her dresser, pulling on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. She tosses Raquel a spare set of pajamas too, but she doesn’t touch them.

Chloe climbs back into bed, feeling more centered now that she’s fully dressed. “So what’s the plan?” She asks, taking Raquel’s hands in her own. “What are we gonna do? What do you need me to do?”

Raquel shakes her head. Rubs the pads of her thumbs over the back of Chloe’s hands. Smiles sadly. “I don’t… I don’t think you _can_ do anything.”

Chloe frowns again. “What? What are you talking about?”

Raquel brings their joined hands up to her lips and presses a long kiss against Chloe’s knuckles. When she finally puts them down and looks up, her eyes are glistening with unshed tears. “I’m putting in a transfer request. To move back to Kentucky.”

Chloe’s heart clenches and her stomach bottoms out. “Oh.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you. I only… I only made up my mind about this yesterday.”

Chloe holds Raquel’s fingers in her hand like a vice. When she speaks, her voice is shaky and uncertain.

Chloe feels like the ground is falling away from under her feet. “I don’t… you don’t want me to come with you?”

Raquel shifts closer, and the sheet falls away from her chest, leaving her exposed to the night air. There’s a tiny bruise right above her left breast, a purple remnant from earlier in the night when Chloe had been busy marking her chest, when Raquel had dug her fingers deep into Chloe’s hair like she was afraid if she didn’t Chloe would pull away from her and never come back. “I can’t ask you to do that, Chloe,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

“But I want to.”

“No.” Raquel laughs, sadly. “No you don’t. Because _I_ don’t want to go, so there’s no way that you do.”

Chloe inhales sharply. Her lip quivers. She tries not to, but she starts to cry, almost silently. “I don’t want you to go,” she says, her voice breaking over the words.

“I don’t want to leave.”

The tears are falling steadily now, as it all starts to sink in.

She’s _leaving_.

Chloe pulls away from her, pulls the collar of her shirt up so that it covers her face, presses the heels of her palms against her eyes as sobs start to shake her shoulders.

 “Chloe…” Raquel slides over to her. Wraps her arms around Chloe’s middle and buries her face in the fabric of Chloe’s shirt.

They sit like that for a while, holding each other while Chloe trembles.

“I get it, you know?” Chloe says after a while. Once she’s calmed down a little.

She wipes at her eyes and brings her head out of her shirt. Raquel is staring at her with red-rimmed eyes of her own, deep and dark and full of something that makes Chloe’s heart shatter in her chest. “I’m not mad at you,” she feels the need to say. She brings her hand up to cup Raquel’s cheek. Kisses her long and slow and deep until she feels like she can’t breathe. “I’m not mad,” she whispers again.

Raquel brings her their foreheads together.

Chloe closes her eyes. Tears drip off the end of her nose and onto Raquel’s smooth skin. “I’m not mad. I’m just…” But she trails off, not knowing what else to say.

“I love you,” Raquel breathes against her lips. “That hasn’t changed.”

“I know. And I love you, too.” A short pause. “It just isn’t enough.”

**

She calls Beca before she calls anyone else. Before she calls her parents, before she even calls Aubrey. She just… Beca’s the first person she thinks to call. The first person she _wants_ to call.

She’s proud of herself, though. Proud that she gets through telling Beca the full story without crying, her hands shaking only imperceptibly.

Her stomach feels terrible, queasy and clenching and twisting in on itself. She’s having a little trouble breathing, and her vision is completely unfocused, but she doesn’t cry.

So. There’s that.

Beca is quiet for a very long time after Chloe finishes talking. Chloe stares down at her hands on her kitchen counter. It’s easier than looking at Beca.

 _“Is there…”_ Her voice is quiet and thick. She clears her throat and tries again. _“Is there anything I can do?”_

Chloe shakes her head. “No. There’s nothing anyone can do. She’s… she’s already applied for a transfer back home, to Kentucky.”

_“Oh.”_

“Yeah.”

A very heavy silence that stretches on for far too long. _“When does she leave?”_

Chloe takes a breath. Closes her eyes and turns her head away. Swallows thickly. “Three weeks.”

 _“Oh, Chloe,”_ and Chloe _hates_ the tone of her voice, hates how pitying she sounds, hates the way that it makes her feel like falling apart. She clenches her teeth. _“I’m… I’m so sorry,”_ Beca says again, even softer than before.

“Yeah, Becs. Me too.”

**

Chloe drives her to the airport.

The silence in the car is deafening, but Chloe has no idea how she’s supposed to break it, how she’s supposed to ease the tension that’s grown between them.

They walk hand-in-hand silently all the way up until right before security.

Chloe pulls Raquel to her and hugs her tightly, arms around her shoulders and face buried in her hair.

Raquel’s arms wrap around her waist and they hold each other just like that, without moving or speaking, for a long minute.

When they finally pull away, Raquel has to blink quickly a few times. She brushes her fingers under her eyes, pushing the tears to the side. “You should talk to Beca, you know,” she says. Reaches up and combs her fingers through Chloe’s hair. “Try to work things out.”

Chloe shakes her head. “Is now really the best time for this conversation?”

Raquel shrugs. “I feel like… if I don’t say it now I never will. Otherwise I’ll change my mind the second I walk on that plane.”

“It feels like you’re encouraging me to go off and find another woman.”

Raquel laughs a little and shakes her head once. “I want to stress very strongly that I _don’t_ want that at all, that would make me feel _terrible_.” She bites her lip. Pushes her fingers through Chloe’s hair again, fingers scratching lightly on her scalp. “But I also know that it’s selfish of me to want to have ruined you for all other women.”

Chloe pulls Raquel’s hands out of her hair. Links their fingers together. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be selfish before.”

Raquel squeezes her hand. “I know. I’m a completely new person, and I’ve never felt worse about it.” She rubs Chloe’s knuckles. “So? About what I said?”

Chloe takes a breath. “I don’t know, Elle. I… don’t know if I want that. I mean I like having her back in my life. I missed her. She’s my best friend. But I don’t know if I want… anything else.”

“You don’t have to want to want anything else. I just think you guys should talk. It’s been a long time coming.”

Chloe doesn’t realize she’s crying until Raquel takes a step forward, lifting her hand to brush at the tears that are spilling silently down Chloe’s cheeks.

Chloe tries to laugh but it comes out more as a choked-off sob.

“Shh,” Raquel whispers, cupping Chloe’s cheeks gently with her warm hands. “Please don’t cry, Chloe.”

Chloe shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I promised I wouldn’t do this.”

Raquel is crying, too, though much quieter than Chloe, who is shaking so much she feels like she can’t stand up on her own. “I don’t want to leave,” Raquel admits quietly.

Chloe takes a deep breath. Meets her eyes. “I don’t want you to leave, either.”

Raquel smiles at her and it’s the saddest smile Chloe’s ever seen in her life. She threads her fingers through Chloe’s hair, thumb brushing over her ear. “I’m really gonna miss you, Chloe.”

Chloe turns her face to kiss Raquel’s palm. “I’m gonna miss you more.”

Raquel kisses her, hand still buried in her hair, her other arm snaking around Chloe’s waist, gently pulling them together. Chloe grips her hands into Raquel’s coat, as if by holding on as tightly as she can she could stop Raquel from getting on her plane.

~~

It doesn’t work, of course. Raquel still gets on the plane.

And Chloe cries about it. She does. She cries for what feels like days.

But not as much as she thought she would.

She doesn’t feel like she’s drowning every day. So. That’s something.

And they still talk pretty regularly. Especially those first few weeks. Phone calls and texts and Snapchats and video calls until they both start to get less desperate, less sad and heartbroken, until they start to fall into an easy sort of comfortable friendship.

It takes months, but eventually the ache of losing her starts to lessen, just a little bit. They learn how to interact as friends more than exes, learn how to share information easily, exchange jokes and stories without feeling melancholic. They learn how to appreciate the good news in each others’ lives without feeling like they’re missing out, learn how to encourage each other towards new romantic relationships without feeling sick and jealous.

They part on good terms and they remain on good terms.

It sucks, and Chloe hates it, hates that they can’t be together, hates that the light in Raquel’s eyes seems to be fading a little bit every week she’s in Kentucky, every week her mom’s condition gets a little bit worse. She hates it, but she’d rather have Raquel in her life than not at all.

So she takes what she can get.

**

It gets easier. Slowly but surely it gets easier.

School starts back up, and Chloe starts to learn her new students’ names and faces. She introduces herself to the teacher who takes over Raquel’s fifth grade class, a young man fresh out of grad school with a bounce in his step and a flair for historically-themed ties.

Chloe likes him well enough. He’s not nearly as good as Raquel, but she likes him well enough.

And it takes time, but it gets easier.

Chloe’s second heartbreak is nowhere near as debilitating as her first.

**

Through it all, there’s Beca.

Beca, the quiet, calm constant in Chloe’s life. (Such a departure from the first four years of them knowing each other, when Beca’s constant presence made Chloe feel simultaneously like she was burning alive and drowning.)

Beca, with her soft laugh and her quiet support, with her jokes and contemplation and hot gossip industry news. With her stories that are perfectly structured to distract Chloe from her bad moods.

As their friendship gains in strength, their phone calls become more common. Their text exchanges become a near-daily routine.

As their friendship grows stronger, Chloe starts to relax, to loosen up. And as she starts to feel more secure in their relationship she starts to wonder about Beca’s life these past three years.

They haven’t really talked about it.

Chloe knows she isn’t seeing anyone, knows she’s busy most days working on her music, knows she doesn’t spend a lot of time out or relaxing or on vacations away from the city.

She doesn’t know a lot. So she still wonders.

It’s the middle of a Saturday afternoon in late November. The world outside Chloe’s apartment is grey and cloudy — a threatening hint of snowfall lurking just on the edge of the city.

But Beca’s apartment is full of natural light. She’s sprawled out on her bed as sun streams in through her window, flat on her stomach with her legs kicked up behind her. Chloe eyes her windows enviously, dreaming of warm sun and wide beaches. “It’s not fair that it’s like 65 degrees there. Completely unfair.”

Beca laughs. _“You’re the one who wanted to move to the mountainy snowy part of the country, not me. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”_

“Ugh,” Chloe groans and wraps her blanket tighter around herself, “I miss the sun.”

_“The North Carolina sun?”_

“Honestly I’ll take any sun I can get, at this point. It’s been too long.” She throws an arm over her eyes and sprawls backwards, “I’ve grown pale from Vitamin D deficiency.”

_“You’re very dramatic.”_

“Well, you know, some things never change.” Chloe’s phone _pings_ on her bedside table and she cranes over to look at the screen. She sighs, flips it over and doesn’t pick it up.

When she turns back to her computer, Beca is watching her.

 _“Was that Raquel?”_ Beca asks, her expression carefully neutral.

Chloe shakes her head. “Don’t really want to talk about this, Becs.”

_“How are things going with that?”_

“Hey, so I heard Emily visited you.”

Beca sighs. _“You’re changing the subject.”_

“I know and I’m doing _such_ a great job of it, wouldn’t you agree?” Beca rolls her eyes.

Chloe runs a hand through her hair. Beca’s eyes track the movement, a strange expression on her face. Chloe shakes her head. “C’mon, I don’t want to talk about the fact that my girlfriend had to move across the country. Please tell me about your adventures with Legacy in LA.”

Beca bites her lip, looking like she’s about to say something important, but eventually she just sighs. Rolls her head to crack her neck. _“Well, you know she’s recording some vocals for some stuff I’m working on, yeah?”_

Chloe nods, her mood immediately picking up. “She told me. That’s so exciting.”

_“Right, well, so we mostly just did that. She was only here for a few days. She’s really busy, you know… senior year, last year as Bellas captain, and all that.”_

Chloe laughs. “I know. She keeps calling me about it. She’s totally freaking out.”

_“So you guys keep in contact?”_

“Yeah.” She smiles. “She said you were doing really well, by the way.”

Beca takes a deep breath and sits up in her bed, pulling her laptop up to rest on her knees. She leans her head back against some of her pillows and bites her lip.

The image is so reminiscent of one Chloe’s seen a thousand times that she has to shake her head to dispel it. (She hasn’t thought of Beca like that in years, hasn’t pictured Beca sprawled out, naked in Chloe’s bed, hair fanned out across Chloe’s pillow in _years_. It’s startling to experience it again.)

 _“Can I be honest with you?”_ Beca asks quietly, her eyes focused on some spot above her computer so she isn’t looking directly at Chloe.

Chloe nods, even though she knows Beca isn’t looking at her. “Always,” she says sincerely.

Beca sighs. _“Okay, so, honestly? I’ve been… pretty miserable.”_

Chloe tilts her head, confused. “Em doesn’t seem to think so.”

_“Well, you put on a brave face when the kid’s around, you know? I mean… I mean I’ve barely left this apartment since I moved here, except to go to work or the studio or some event or gallery opening that my manager makes me go to.”_

“You have a _manager_ now? Look at you, flying fancy.”

_“Hardly fancy.”_

“Have you seen where you _live_ , Beca? This is _fancy_.”

Beca blushes and looks around. _“I guess it isn’t bad.”_

Chloe smiles. “You’re doing well for yourself. I heard some of the stuff you mixed for Collier. It’s _really_ good, Becs.”

Beca sighs again and runs a hand roughly through her hair. _“I don’t know. I guess. I mean it pays the bills and all but it… It isn’t really_ me _, though.”_

“What do you mean? You did it.”

 _“Yeah but… I don’t know.”_ Her shoulders slump. _“I don’t feel like I really put my soul into it, you know?”_

“What about your own stuff? The stuff you’ve been working on with Emily?”

Beca sits up a little straighter, her eyes brightening. _“Oh yeah, that’s totally the reason I called. I completely forgot.”_

Chloe frowns. “What?”

_“My album. It… it’s done. This stuff with Emily was the last bit I needed to do before… I mean it’s totally finished now.”_

“Beca that’s _incredible_.”

_“I mean you should really be talking to Legacy and Cynthia Rose, they did most of the vocals, but…”_

“But it’s _yours_ , right? It’s your album and it’s your music and it’s your words?”

Beca smiles, a little shyly. _“Yeah. Yeah, it’s mine.”_

“That’s amazing, Beca.” Chloe can’t fight the wide grin that’s taken over her face. “I can’t wait to hear it. When _can_ I hear it, by the way? I assume I’ll be getting an advanced copy, obviously.”

Beca chuckles. _“Not an advanced copy, no, but… It drops in like two months? Like right after the New Year?”_

“Oh my God, that’s so soon!”

 _“Yeah,”_ Beca swallows, her eyes darting everywhere but Chloe’s face. _“I…”_ She pauses. _“I wanted to invite you to the release party. But I didn’t know if… I wasn’t sure that would be okay.”_

Chloe nods vehemently. “It’s _absolutely_ okay. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

 _“Okay.”_ A breath of relief. _“Okay good. And I was… well I was hoping to invite all the Bellas, including Aubrey, but I’m not sure—”_

Chloe cuts her off quickly. “I’ll make sure she’s there.”

_“You’ll make sure she’s there and that she doesn’t kill me, right?”_

“ _Yes_ , Beca,” Chloe laughs. “I’ll make sure you survive the night.”

Beca grins a crooked grin. _“Good.”_

**

 **Chloe (10:22 a.m.)  
** _Is it a bad idea for me to go to LA?_

 

 **Raquel (10:30 a.m.)  
** _Why are you going to LA?_

**Chloe (10:31 a.m.)**  
_Beca’s album  
_ _She finished it._

**Chloe (10:31 a.m.)**  
_She’s having a release party in…  
_ _January, I think?_

**Chloe (10:32 a.m.)  
** _All the Bellas are going._

**Raquel (10:32 a.m.)  
** _Do you want to go?_

**Chloe (10:32 a.m.)**  
_I think so.  
_ _But I’m not sure._

**Chloe (10:33 a.m.)  
** _It’s been three years, you know?_

**Raquel (10:34 a.m.)  
** _True._

**Raquel (10:34 a.m.)**  
_But it’s been going well_  
_Right?  
_ _Talking with her, and everything?_

**Chloe (10:35 a.m.)**  
_It’s been going…  
_ _Better than I ever expected_

**Raquel (10:35 a.m.)**  
_Okay_  
_And this is important to her_  
_Right?  
_ _And it’s important to you?_

**Chloe (10:35 a.m.)  
** _Yeah._

**Raquel (10:36 a.m.)**  
_Would you regret it?  
_ _If you didn’t go?_

 

 

 

 **Raquel (10:55 a.m.)  
** _Chloe?_

**Chloe (10:56 a.m.)  
** _Yeah. I would regret it._

**Raquel (11:02 a.m.)  
** _Then you should go._

**

Chloe puts in for time off at work and buys a ticket to LA for the second weekend after the New Year.

She tries not to think about it too much, tries not to notice the pounding of her heart or the way her fingers twitch against her keyboard.

She closes her computer and texts Beca her flight information.

 **Beca (2:35 p.m.)**  
_Chloe!!!!  
_ _oh my god_

**Beca (2:36 p.m.)  
** _i can’t wait to see you_

Chloe’s heart beats a little faster in her chest.

**


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When Chloe steps off the airplane and into the dry California air, she feels something in her chest constrict._
> 
> _This is the closest she’s been to Beca in three years._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left after this. Oh, how time flies.
> 
> This might look a little different in the next few days if I re-look at it because I'm not sure I really love how it turned out, but... I wanted to get it out ASAP.
> 
> As always, feel free to come talk to me on [ tumblr.](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

When Chloe steps off the airplane and into the dry California air, she feels something in her chest constrict.

This is the closest she’s been to Beca in three years.

Emily can’t contain her excitement. She picks Chloe up from the airport, and when the younger girl sees her outside of baggage claim she throws herself forwards. Her body collides with Chloe’s hard enough to knock all the air out of two sets of lungs. Chloe grunts in pain but she can’t help but laugh, and she drops her bags at her side so she can wrap Emily in a full-bodied hug, arms thrown over her shoulders and gripping her tightly.

“I missed you,” Emily mumbles into her shoulder, and Chloe has to smile through the curtain of brown hair falling around her face.

“I missed you too, Em.”

Emily pulls back, brushing a finger under eyes, furtively wiping away tears. She grins madly, even though her eyes are red-rimmed. “ _God_ , I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe _everyone_ is gonna be here! This is so exciting. It’s like a Bellas reunion.” Emily tilts her head and squints at Chloe, like she’s only just now taking in her full appearance. “Wow, you look incredible. Your hair is amazing.” She reaches up and pulls at the ends, like a cat with a ball of yarn. “I really like it this length. You should wear it like this all the time.”

Chloe laughs and brushes her hand away. “ _Stop_ , I have plane-hair.”

“Well, your plane-hair looks _amazing_.” Emily bends down and grabs Chloe’s carry-on. Chloe tries to protest but Emily waves her off, adamantly refusing to be swayed by Chloe’s urging. “You’re the guest here,” she states. “So let me carry your bags, please.” Chloe rolls her eyes but lets her take the lead as she practically drags Chloe towards the taxi line.

“So where are you taking me?” Chloe asks, only a little concerned.

“Beca’s,” Emily says, “obviously.”

Chloe pulls a face. “What do you mean ‘ _obviously’_?”

Emily shoots her a weird look. “You’re staying with her. We both are.”

Chloe blinks in surprise, her face falling. “Oh… no, Em, it’s fine. I told her I would get a hotel.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Emily says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “and she told _me_ that you were absolutely not allowed to stay in a hotel while you’re here.” Emily beams at her. Grips her hand tightly. “You’re only here for the weekend, Chloe! And we both want to spend as much time with you as possible!”

“Oh,” Chloe says, feeling a little off-kilter (though admittedly that _could_ just be from the flight). “Well… if you’re sure? That we aren’t… imposing, or anything?”

Emily waves her off. “Not at all. Beca’s place is _huge_. She has a guest bedroom and everything. We’ll barely be in her way.”

Chloe laughs weakly. Holds Emily’s hand a little tighter so hers doesn’t tremble. “So I’m guessing that means you and I are sharing?”

“Duh!” Emily hops in place as a taxi pulls up in front of them. “It’ll be like a sleepover!”

Chloe smiles and tries not to let on exactly how shaky this all makes her feel. Her stomach feels a little queasy and she drums her fingers nervously against her lap as she stares out the window of the cab, the landscape of Los Angeles slipping by her almost faster than she can glimpse it.

Emily is humming happily next to her, head bopping along to whatever Top-20 song is playing on the radio. Chloe doesn’t recognize it.

“You’re going to lose your mind when you hear this stuff, Chloe.”

Chloe blinks. Pulls herself back to the car and to their conversation. “What… Beca’s stuff? You think so?”

Emily nods furiously. “Absolutely. I’ve heard some of it and… wow. Just _wow_. I cried for like five hours.”

If anything, the twisting feeling in Chloe’s stomach gets worse. “You… you cried at _Beca’s_ music?”

That doesn’t make sense. Beca’s music has always so upbeat, so lively, so full of joy and energy and reckless abandon, all about pounding bass notes and soaring vocals, all about mixing together as many songs as possible until the artistry verges just on the hint of chaos.

It’s weird, that she hasn’t heard any of Beca’s new music yet. Unless she counts the stuff that plays on the radio (which, frankly, Chloe doesn’t like to count). She used to be the first person who heard any of it, and now… now she’s not even sure what it _sounds_ like.

Chloe thinks that she maybe doesn’t really know Beca all that well anymore.

“I _sobbed_ when I heard it,” Emily continues, unaware of the emotional turmoil roiling about in the pit of Chloe’s stomach. “It’s so… _ugh_.” Emily grins, her face awash in the early afternoon sunlight. “You’ll see you’ll see you’ll see.”

Chloe smiles back at her and feels a little weak.

~~

Beca’s apartment is gigantic. By Denver standards, by LA standards, by twenty-five year-old standards. (Who is she kidding — it’s gigantic by Chloe’s standards, too.)

She’s never really felt like her place in Denver is too small. It’s always been cozy, comfortable, the perfect size for her and her quaint life and all of her stuff. Perfect for a music teacher living off of a public school salary. The perfect size for what she needs.

But standing here, in Beca’s sprawling apartment… yeah. She feels small, here.

Emily bounds through the door and into the kitchen without a second thought. “Beca’s still at work, obviously,” she calls from somewhere Chloe can’t see. “But she said she was gonna try and get off early and meet us here.” Emily pokes her head out of the kitchen door. “You can take your stuff to the bedroom, if you want? Are you hungry at all? I was gonna make a sandwich.”

“Yeah,” Chloe says distractedly, her eyes practically feasting on the room in front of her. “Yeah, I could eat.”

Despite the fact that Emily tells her she can take her things to the spare bedroom, all Chloe can do is linger in the threshold, her eyes wide as she takes in the space around her.

 _Fuck_ , this place is huge.

It looks like the entire wall facing out towards the city is made of windows. They stretch from the floor all the way up to the ceiling, and Chloe feels a little dizzy as she looks out onto the sprawling cityscape just beyond them.

Everything is white, all modern shapes and sleek designs and plush furniture offset by glass tables. Hardwood floors and perfectly clean cabinets. Artfully placed coffee table magazines and high-backed dining room chairs and a kitchen with gleaming stainless steel fixtures. A rug stretches from the door towards the main sitting area; like a mini red carpet, but plush and grey.

There’s a TV propped on top of a cabinet that is just _overflowing_ with movies. (Jesse’s lingering influence, Chloe assumes.)

But the obvious focal point in the room, and the thing to which Chloe’s eye is first drawn, is a looming CD case that extends nearly end-to-end on the far wall in the room. It alone is almost as big as Chloe’s entire apartment, and it’s stuffed near to bursting with what must easily be over a thousand CDs.

Chloe stares at it with something akin to awe.

That’s how Emily finds her nearly a minute later. Staring slack-jawed at Beca’s intimidatingly impressive collection of music.

Chloe jumps when Emily speaks from next to her. She hadn’t noticed her walk up. “It’s kind of crazy, right?” All Chloe can do is nod. “I don’t know how she’s supposed to listen to all of those. But, you know… some people like to have books to make them feel smart and well-read. Beca likes to keep a copy of every record she’s ever listened to.”

Chloe’s eyes skim the titles. Some of them she’s familiar with. But a lot more — most, dare she say — are completely foreign to her.

“It’s sort of…” Chloe clears her throat, “daunting?”

“You’re preaching to the choir here, girl. I told her it was pretentious but she almost smacked me, so…” Emily shrugs. “I’ve gotta pick my battles and this is one I’m clearly not going to win.”

Chloe wants to walk towards them. She wants to run her fingers along the edge of every case, let her eyes roam through each genre and artist. She wants to understand Beca’s filing system, wants to know if she arranges her music alphabetically or chronologically or by genre or from most-favorite to least-favorite. She wants to read them, to peruse them, to study and examine them like one might an Italian Renaissance painting.

If she could just figure this one little thing out about Beca’s life, maybe she could understand her more fully. More completely. If she could just get a handle on Beca’s largest and most prominent passion, maybe she could—

Emily lays a hand on her shoulder and Chloe jumps again before she turns to face her, her eyes a little too-wide, worried she’s been caught, worried her thoughts are playing out visibly on her face.

Emily only smiles at her. “Come eat a sandwich, Chloe. I wanna hear all about teaching! Tell me about your kids, tell me about the school… tell me _everything_.”

Chloe nods and follows her into the kitchen with a long, lingering look at the treasure trove behind her. But still, she allows Emily to draw her away.

~~

The sound of the front door opening makes Chloe’s heart flip over in her chest. Emily immediately bursts into a wide grin, leaping off of the couch before Chloe has time to even turn her head. She bounds across the room with bare feet slapping against wood floors and Chloe smiles almost ruefully. She knows what’s coming.

Chloe hears an _Oof_ from near the front door as Emily’s body collides with Beca’s. Beca stumbles backward, laughing even as she crashes heavily into the front door, Emily’s body completely engulfing hers in a crushing embrace. They easily get caught up in a wave of pealing laughter.

Chloe stands more slowly, easing her body up from Beca’s lone armchair. She can see Beca by the front door, her hands buried in Emily’s hair as she pushes the dark locks away from her face. “Look how tall you’ve gotten!” Beca jokes, brushing her thumbs against the ridges of Emily’s cheeks. “You’re too skinny. You have to let me fatten you up.”

Emily slaps her hands away with a giggle, and it’s only then that Beca’s eyes drift away from her face and further into the apartment.

Their eyes lock, and the anxiety and trepidation that had so consumed Chloe for the past few days seems to melt away entirely.

Beca beams. She releases Emily from her quasi-mothering embrace, slips around her, and she and Chloe meet somewhere in the middle of the hallway.

Her arms are around Chloe’s waist, Chloe’s wrapped tightly around her shoulders, before Chloe can even blink. They stand like that, very still, encircled together for many long seconds.

“Hi,” Beca finally mumbles into the soft fabric of her sweater, her face hidden against Chloe’s shoulder.

Chloe smiles, eyes closed. She inhales deeply, and the smell of Beca’s shampoo — familiar even after all these years — washes over her pleasantly. “Hi,” she whispers.

Emily sighs happily from somewhere to the right and Beca and Chloe slowly withdraw, hands falling to elbows and forearms rather so they don’t have to break contact completely.

Chloe glances at their younger friend. “It’s just…” Emily says, pretending to wipe at a few tears, “it’s so nice to have Mom and Dad in the same room again!”

Chloe and Beca share a significant look. “You’re the dad,” they say in unison.

Chloe beams, eyes flashing mischievously. Beca frowns. “What do you mean _I’m_ the dad? _You’re_ obviously the dad.”

“Chloe’s right, Beca. You’re _definitely_ the dad.”

Beca crosses her arms over her chest and huffs. “I’ve changed my mind. You can rent an incredibly expensive hotel room for the weekend. Get out of my home.”

Emily lunges forward and wraps them both in a tight hug, squishing their bodies together. “I missed you guys so much,” she says, her face sandwiched between Beca and Chloe’s shoulders. And if she’s crying a little bit as she says it, well… she isn’t the only one.

~~

Chloe had imagined that staying with Beca would be a lot weirder than it actually is. She had imagined that it would be a lot of dancing around each other, of feeling unsure in shared spaces, of trying to awkwardly navigate hallways and kitchens, of stilted conversation and heavy, significant looks.

But all in all, it’s kind of super easy. In like… the best possible way.

They’re a little awkward around each other, to be sure. They hesitate before sitting next to each other on the couch. Chloe pauses in the kitchen, feeling uncomfortable no matter how much Beca insists that “ _You can help yourself to literally anything in the fridge. Don’t even worry about it.”_ And they _do_ share a few significant looks.

But all in all, it’s actually _really_ easy.

Emily being there helps. She lounges around the apartment like it’s her own, rummages through cupboards and snags food without thinking, kicks her feet up on coffee tables and digs through Beca’s makeup like a particularly entitled younger sister.

But Beca doesn’t even bat an eye. She steps over Emily’s legs, stretched between the couch and the coffee table; she brushes by her in the bathroom, unbothered by the mess she’s making of Beca’s cosmetic products; they move around each other in the kitchen like it’s a practiced dance, ducking under outstretched arms and swinging wide arcs around the island as they each move for the things they want.

Chloe watches them with open fascination.

Back when Chloe knew the pair of them — back when Emily was young and bright-eyed and 18 and Beca was struggling with too much guilt and too many responsibilities — they worked well together, sure, but it was _nothing_ like this. Emily walked on egg shells around Beca, watched her with a kind of reverent hero-worship that can only be attributed to young and insecure women. Beca, for her part, regarded Emily with a sort of reluctant resignation; like she knew that Emily was in some way _her_ responsibility but she didn’t want to have to deal with the full consequences of that knowledge.

The relationship Chloe is currently witnessing is comfortable and familiar in a way that she never expected or anticipated.

It’s bizarre, strange, and unanticipated.

But it’s also kind of lovely.

“Can I borrow something to wear tonight, Becs?” Emily practically begs, an hour before their dinner is supposed to start.

Beca rolls her eyes as she pours milk into her coffee. “What, you didn’t bring enough clothes with you?”

“I _did_ , obviously. But you’re like… _rich_ , now. I want to wear something _fancy_.”

Beca sighs and shoots Chloe a look that can only be described as _loving exasperation._ “You _do_ know that we’re just making dinner here, right?”

Emily pulls a face. “So? I can’t dress up for that?”

“No, I just meant…” She shakes her head and sighs again. “Sure, help yourself. You know where everything is.”

Emily squeals and jumps in place, clapping her hands excitedly. “Thank you thank you thank you!” She yells before rushing off toward where Chloe assumes Beca’s bedroom is located.

Beca groans, grabbing her coffee and moving to join Chloe in the sitting room. She slumps into a chair catty-corner to Chloe’s spot on the couch and Chloe has to laugh at the pure exhaustion on her face. Beca glares, wrapping her fingers tighter around her warm mug. “Stop it,” she says seriously. “Pretty soon she’s gonna be tearing through _your_ wardrobe too, because she _knows_ she’s too tall for any of my stuff.”

“You didn’t seem that keen on fighting her about it.”

Beca shrugs, trying to look unbothered but failing pretty spectacularly. “Well… I mean you have to let her learn for herself, you know?”

Chloe rolls her eyes but she’s smiling all the same. She crosses her legs at the knee and tries not to notice the way Beca’s gaze flicks down to track the movement. “She isn’t _four_ , Beca.”

“She’s still a kid.”

“She can drink legally.”

Beca shudders. “Don’t remind me. _God_ , we’re old.”

Chloe laughs and runs a hand through her hair. “Speak for yourself. I’m still in the prime of my life.”

Beca’s eyes soften a little. “Yeah,” she says, her gaze intense and unwavering, “you definitely are.”

Chloe bites the inside of her cheek and shifts in her seat at the unexpected attention. She stares down at her hands, folded in her lap. She rubs the thumb of her right hand against her left palm, choosing to focus on the movement of her own fingers rather than Beca’s face.

Beca clears her throat. “So… When does Aubrey get here?”

Chloe relaxes almost immediately at the change in conversation. “Not until tomorrow.” Her eyes twinkle. “So you have at least one more night of guaranteed safety.”

“Chloe, you _promised_ you wouldn’t let her kill me!”

“And I won’t!” Chloe pauses. Tilts her head to the side, brow furrowed in mock-concentration. She frowns over-exaggeratedly. “But… you know… I don’t know if I can guarantee that your _apartment_ will survive the night.”

Beca groans and tips back in her chair. She runs a weary hand over her face. “I’m gonna have to move. I’m gonna have to go completely off the grid, change all of my information…”

Chloe laughs. “You’re so dramatic.”

“Have you ever _met_ Aubrey?”

“I used to _live_ with her, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Beca’s eyes widen. She blinks a few times and shakes her head slowly. “God, I actually _did_ forget that. Jesus, how did you get out of there alive?”

“Luck, probably.”

“I’m gonna need a lot of that to get through the next few days.”

Chloe smiles. “Aubrey aside, are you nervous? I mean… tomorrow’s the big day.”

Beca smiles too, but it’s a quieter smile. Her lip quivers ever-so-slightly. “I’m definitely excited. Mostly terrified, though. I just… it’s something I’ve worked so hard on, for so long. And like… I want people to hear my stuff, obviously. But… you know… what if they hate it?”

“I really don’t think they’re going to hate it.”

“You haven’t heard it either, Chlo. And I really appreciate the confidence, but—”

“Emily says it’s beautiful,” Chloe cuts her off quietly. “She says she cried while listening to it.”

Beca flushes a light pink. She clears her throat. “Yeah. I guess she did.”

Chloe’s lips twitch up into a half-smile. “Okay. Well, _I_ trust Emily’s judgment. If she says it’s good, then it’s good.”

The breath Beca releases is a little shaky. But her smile grows, just a bit. “Let’s hope everyone else agrees with you.”

There’s a twinkle in Chloe’s eye when she says, “I think they will.”

~~

Amy, Cynthia Rose, and Stacie show up at the same time, at just a little past 6 pm, and the way Emily screams when she opens the door for them makes Beca come leaping out of her bedroom, brandishing her curling iron like a bat.

She doesn’t manage more than a light, “Jesus, Emily. Wanna sound _less_ like a murder victim?” before she’s engulfed in three different hugs.

The warmth emanating from the front of Beca’s apartment is infectious.

Chloe can’t get enough.

~~

Before half an hour is up, Beca’s apartment is stuffed to bursting with 10 eagerly-chatting women crammed into chairs and on couches, sprawled half on top of each other over every available surface. Since everyone brought her own case of beer or bottle of wine, there’s very clearly no risk of the alcohol running out.

Chloe and Beca are side-by-side in Beca’s kitchen, pulling together about four pounds of pasta — which seems like _far_ too much food in Chloe’s opinion but Beca guarantees her that by tomorrow it’ll all be gone — and laughing as their college teammates shout, jostle each other, and share bits of information about their lives in increasingly rowdier voices.

Beca smiles at her over a pot of boiling water, and Chloe knows that she hasn’t felt this light in years.

~~

“—So we’re getting married next summer! And of course, you’re all invited.” Cynthia beams around the table as Stacie fawns over her ring, glittering bright on the ring finger of her extended hand. “So Imma need all of your addresses before this weekend is up so I can send you your ‘Save the Dates’ because _someone_ —” she shoots Chloe an annoyed look— “decided to delete all of her social media years ago and now I can’t find out where she lives.” Chloe smiles sheepishly and shrugs in response.

“Em,” Beca cuts in quickly, glancing at Chloe out of the corner of her eye, “how are things going with Benji?”

Emily blushes furiously as the rest of the Bellas _Oooo_ and nudge her knowingly with their elbows. She’s flushed red with embarrassment but still grinning widely when she answers. “We’re doing great, actually. The distance can be kind of hard sometimes but he’s only in Florida so it’s not that far.”

Beca ruffles Emily’s hair on her way to the kitchen, piles of empty dishes stacked in one hand. “Good for you, kid,” she shouts over her shoulder as she deposits the plates in the sink.

Chloe watches as she moves about the room, collecting silverware and glasses and waving off every attempt to assist. She heads back into the kitchen with an adamant demand that the rest of them stay out and talk to each other, insisting that she doesn’t need anyone else to help her clean up the kitchen. Then there’s the sound of more plates clanging into the sink, the sound of running water. Chloe watches the open doorway with quiet contemplation.

“What about you, Chloe?” Chloe blinks, drawn back unexpectedly into the conversation.

“Hmm?” She asks, thumbing the rim of her glass absent-mindedly.

“How has your love life been?” Stacie prompts further, and the rest of the table leans forward with looks of open curiosity on their anticipatory faces. In the kitchen the sink shuts off, but Beca does not emerge from the room.

Chloe takes a long sip of her wine to delay her answer. “Actually,” she says after a few long seconds, “my girlfriend — well, ex-girlfriend now — moved back to Kentucky a few months ago. To take care of her mom. So…” She smiles a little and shrugs, “no one since then.”

Lilly puts a comforting hand on Chloe’s shoulder. Chloe thinks she might say something under her breath, too, but her lips barely move and asking for clarification would be pointless. So Chloe just smiles at her. “It is what it is,” she says quietly, eyes mostly downturned. “We keep in contact. And she seems to be doing really well, so… all I can ask for, I guess.”

Luckily, the other girls seem to pick up on her reluctance to continue this specific topic of discussion. Jessica and Ashley push the conversation gently away from romance and love lives and towards more neutral things — careers, singing, friends from college, where they’re living — while Chloe stands from the table and makes her way quietly into the kitchen.

Beca is leaning against the counter, arms folded over her chest, her head tipped back and eyes closed. There’s a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. She looks happy, but a little exhausted, too.

Chloe chuckles when she sees her and Beca’s eyes open lazily, blinking slowly, as if rousing herself from sleep. She smiles. “You needed a break from them, too?” Beca asks.

Chloe nods, her shoulders relaxing slightly. “I love them, but… they’re kind of a lot, sometimes.”

“Tell me about it.”

Chloe moves toward the sink and the dishes still piled high in the basin. “So you’re hiding out in here?” She turns the tap on low and grabs a sponge from next to the faucet.

Beca takes a step towards her. “You don’t have to—”

“I’ll wash, you dry.”

“No, Chloe, you _really_ don’t—”

“Let me help, Becs,” Chloe implores. She keeps her back mostly to Beca and scrubs slowly at the build-up on one of the plates. “It gives me an excuse to hide out, too.”

She’s pretty sure Beca’s going to keep fighting her on this whole thing, but to Chloe’s surprise she doesn’t push further. She joins Chloe quietly at the sink, towel in hand, and accepts the dishes Chloe passes her way without argument.

After a few quiet minutes, Chloe nudges Beca with her shoulder. “It’s nice having them all here, isn’t it?”

Beca smiles and takes a wet pan from Chloe’s hands. “It’s nice,” she agrees quietly. “Kind of weird, but nice.”

The sound of their friends’ laughter continues to drift into the otherwise silent space between them. In another life, Chloe might have felt an aching need to return to them, to make sure she doesn’t miss a single moment of their joking conversation, to make sure she’s present for every story and every laugh, every bright-eyed look and teasing exchange.

But in this life, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Beca in her empty kitchen, scrubbing a pile of dirty dishes (because for all the fancy amenities in Beca’s apartment she does _not_ , apparently, have a dishwasher), Chloe finds that she doesn’t feel like she’s missing out on very much at all.

She finds solace in the silence.

When their task is complete, when everything is clean and dry and back in its rightful place in Beca’s kitchen, when the leftovers are safely boxed and tucked into the fridge, their companionable silence ends.

As Chloe moves back toward the sitting room, a hand on her arm pulls her to a stop.

Beca bites her lip nervously, looking unsure of herself. “Can we…” She takes a breath, as if to steady herself. “Can we talk tonight? After Emily goes to sleep, I mean?”

Chloe swallows, her mouth feeling suddenly dry. Her heart rate spikes momentarily. “Yeah,” she says quietly. The sound of Amy’s raucous laughter filters into Beca’s kitchen. “Probably a good idea.”

Beca smiles at her, her eyes wide and open and honest. “Okay. So… tonight, then?”

Chloe nods, her throat thick with something indiscernible.

~~

It takes several hours for everyone to filter out of Beca’s apartment, for the girls to finally drag themselves off to their own Airbnb’s and hotel rooms with long, tight hugs and a promise to see each other bright and early the next morning. It takes another hour after that for Emily to finally stop vibrating with unbridled excitement, for her to realize her own exhaustion and reluctantly excuse herself off to the bed she’s sharing with Chloe with a final few stifled yawns and a hug for each of them.

It takes a few hours, but it feels like almost no time at all until Beca and Chloe are by themselves.

They sit diagonal to each other at Beca’s kitchen table, with Beca at the head and Chloe directly to her left. Beca’s holding a mug of coffee loosely in her hands. She doesn’t drink it, just cups her hands around the warm porcelain, her long, slender fingers providing a sharp contrast to the blood-red of the ceramic. Chloe thinks she’s probably only holding it for comfort more than anything else.

It’s the first time they’ve been well and truly alone in several years, and the significance of that fact is not lost on either of them.

Chloe runs the palms of her hands over the denim of her jeans. Her hands aren’t sweaty, not really, but the feeling of familiar fabric under her fingertips provides her with some modicum of security.

They start to speak at the same time.

“I just—”

“What did—”

They pause, share a look, and then start to laugh quietly. Beca shakes her head ruefully. “Sorry,” she apologizes with a chuckle. “You go first.”

“No I just… I was just wondering what you wanted to talk about.”

Beca tilts her head. “Do I have to _want_ to talk about something?”

Chloe shrugs. “I guess not. I just figured you did. Since… you made it seem like kind of a _thing_ , after dinner.”

Beca chews on the inside of her lip. “I… I _do_ want to talk about something. I just… um… don’t really know how to start?” Chloe sits quietly, trying to convey with just her expression that she’s willing to wait until Beca’s ready.

Beca’s teeth pull a little harder at her lip. Chloe watches her worry the skin until it starts to blossom, pink and abused, visible even in the low lighting of the room.

Finally, Beca straightens in her chair. She takes a breath and tightens her hands around her mug of cooling coffee. “I’m not seeing anyone,” she says, almost out of nowhere.

Chloe blinks and tries not to frown, tries not to let the confusion show on her face. She hadn’t expected _this_ kind of conversation. “I didn’t—”

But Beca cuts her off quickly. “I mean I know you haven’t _asked_ and I know you aren’t really _curious_ or anything. I just… I haven’t… there hasn’t really been anyone serious. Not since college.” _Not since you_ , her eyes say. Beca bites her lip again. “Nothing really progressed beyond like… date six? If it got that far at all. And I mean… there were one-offs too, you know, but nothing… nothing serious.”

Chloe swallows. “How come?”

“It’s not… as dramatic as it sounds, I don’t think. It isn’t… I wasn’t trying to _punish_ myself or anything. Not consciously, at least, though that probably had something to do with it.” Beca sighs. “I guess it’s just… the last time it was serious with anyone it kind of… all went to shit. I was afraid of doing that again. And I’ve been working so hard on this album, you know, and trying to make a name for myself here. I guess I just… work was easier than dating anyone. Safer, probably.”

Chloe shakes her head. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this? I mean—” She’s quick to continue— “you _can_ , obviously. You can tell me anything. And I’m glad that you’re opening up. I just… why are you telling me now?”

Beca clears her throat and shifts a little, visibly uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It… never came up, before. When we were talking. And I thought… I thought I should tell you.”

Chloe frowns. “I’m not… I’m not here to _absolve_ you, Beca. That’s not why I came here. That’s not my _job_. I’m not going to like… reward you for not dating someone seriously since college.”

Beca shakes her head vehemently. “No. No I _know_. I’m not… I’m not _trying_ to have you… that’s not…” She splutters for a few more moments before gritting her teeth. “God that’s not even what I _wanted_ to talk about. I don’t know why I said it at all. It was stupid. I didn’t mean to…” She takes a shaky, unsteady breath. “I’m sorry. Can I… can we start over? Forget everything from the past few minutes and just…”

“You can say whatever you want to say, Beca. I’m not here to pick a fight. You don’t have to keep asking.”

Beca nods. Runs a hand over her face and takes a few more breaths. “I’m sorry about that. About… about telling you that. I didn’t mean…” She shakes her head and pushes her fingers through her messy hair. “What I really wanted to say is that… I _really_ missed you, Chloe. I wanted to call— I almost called you so many times.”

Chloe uses her thumb to pick slowly at the wood grain of the table. “Why didn’t you?” She asks, without accusation.

Beca picks up a spoon and uses it to push her coffee around. As if that will make her more likely to drink it. “I thought you wouldn’t pick up,” she admits. “And that was harder for me than not reaching out.”

“I would have picked up,” Chloe says quietly, lacing her fingers together on the table top to stop them twitching towards Beca.

“Yeah,” Beca agrees after a moment. She puts the spoon down but still doesn’t drink. “You almost definitely shouldn’t have, though.” She rubs at her eyes. Chloe feels the lateness of the hour acutely.

It’s so quiet in Beca’s apartment. It’s _so_ quiet. It feels like they’re the only two people awake in the entire city.

“I wasn’t good for you,” Beca says then, unprompted. “I was terrible to you at school. Terrible to Jesse.” Her voice cracks a little on his name. She clenches her jaw. “The whole situation was just _so_ fucked up.”

“Yeah, but… I mean I went along with it,” Chloe whispers.

Beca nods. “Yeah. I think… I think my part of it was worse though, you know?”

Chloe shrugs. Despite her earlier conviction that she wasn’t here to make Beca feel better for what happened between them, she still somehow feels the need to defend her, to make them equal participants in their own history. It isn’t right for Beca to blame herself completely for what happened. “We both made awful choices. A lot of mistakes. It doesn’t really do any good to blame one of us more than the other. We both should have known better.”

“Yeah.” Soft acquiescence. “You’re right.”

Chloe is quiet for a few long moments. The ticking of Beca’s watch sounds impossibly loud in the dim apartment. “Have you talked to him at all?” She asks hesitantly.

It’s Beca’s turn to pick at the table. For some reason neither of them seems capable of keeping their hands still. “Only a few times,” she admits. “He got in contact with me about a year after I moved here. He’s around. Working on his own stuff. Composing scores for a bunch of indie movies for next to no money. Just like he always wanted to do.”

Chloe smiles. Her heart still aches when she thinks about Jesse, when she remembers the last time she saw him. She still feels an intensely present guilt low in her stomach when she remembers his face.

But he’s doing well. It’s really good to hear, and it makes her smile. Maybe it’s her own selfish feeling of relief that she didn’t end up ruining his life, or maybe it’s just a genuine desire for an old friend to succeed; she isn’t sure.

“We got coffee a couple times,” Beca continues. “I think… I mean we aren’t _friends_ or anything. But I see what he’s up to on Facebook. He texted me when he heard my song on the radio, same as you.” Beca sighs. “I don’t think he’s forgiven me. Not completely. I mean I don’t blame him at all, obviously. I guess he’s not like… mad at me still. We have a fine relationship. But… I don’t think we’re ever gonna be friends again.”

Beca looks so young sitting there, her shoulders slumped and her head bent, her chin touching her chest. There are bags under her eyes. She looks like she hasn’t slept well in months.

Chloe’s heart aches for an entirely different reason.

She reaches across the table and lays her hand on top of Beca’s. Just a light, comforting pressure. “I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it.

Beca shrugs and doesn’t look up at her. “It is what it is. He’s dating someone new. They’ve been together like… a year, I think? And she seems really amazing, so… he’s doing well for himself. It’s all I can really ask for,” she says, echoing Chloe’s own words from earlier in the evening. (So she _had_ been eavesdropping from the kitchen. Chloe thought as much.)

Chloe licks her lips. “You don’t need to keep punishing yourself for it, you know.”

Beca laughs, quiet and a little angry. She runs a hand through her hair and presses her knuckles to her temple, like she’s trying to ward off a headache. “I’m always gonna be punishing myself for it, Chlo.”

Chloe’s throat tightens, and it takes her a few moments to swallow around the feeling. “You know I don’t hate you, right?” Finally, Beca looks up at her. Her eyes are a little wet. “I mean I _did_ ,” she clarifies. “I hated you for a really long time. But I don’t… I’m not mad about it anymore. It happened. We made mistakes. We’ve both moved on from it.” Chloe squeezes her hand. “You don’t have to keep killing yourself over it. We were young and we made mistakes. It doesn’t have to change the rest of your life.”

The air between them feels super-charged with… _something_. Something Chloe can’t distinguish.

Beca’s eyes are fixed on hers, unmoving.

Chloe swallows. Fights against her nature and tries to breathe evenly.

Beca’s eyes flick down to her lips and Chloe’s heart clenches in her chest.

Chloe blinks and then Beca is right in front of her, her breath mingling with Chloe’s, her eyes flicking back and forth. She moves slowly, hesitantly, like she’s approaching a particularly skittish animal. Chloe’s breath catches in her chest and she stills completely.

Neither of them moves for such a long time that Chloe begins to wonder if Beca has turned to stone. She certainly feels as if she has.

But then Beca kisses her softly. Her lips barely brush against Chloe’s, and Chloe’s eyes flutter closed as her heart skips in her chest.

Over the past three years Chloe had imagined this exact situation more times than she probably cared to admit. She imagined countless reunion scenarios, countless instances where she and Beca would see each other again, where Beca would renounce her old ways and pledge herself to Chloe wholly and completely. In some fantasies, Beca would kiss her and Chloe would kiss back, draw her in, wrap her hands in Beca’s hair and never let go. In others, Beca would kiss her and Chloe would allow it for only a second before pulling back and slapping her hard across the face. She would tell her to fuck off, tell her that she doesn’t need her, that she doesn’t want her, that she’s better without her. In some, Beca would kiss her with joyful tears streaming down her face. In some, Beca would never kiss her at all.

For all the times she imagined it, however, Chloe never _really_ thought that she would be here.

Chloe had imagined this exact situation more times than she cared to admit, but she never honestly considered what she would do if she actually saw Beca again, if they actually started talking, if Beca _actually_ kissed her.

They stay like that for only a few short seconds that feel impossibly long, Beca’s lips soft and languid against her own, barely moving, providing only the softest of pressure, before Chloe puts a hand on Beca’s chest and presses lightly, pushing her away.

Beca draws back immediately, eyes wide and searching and glassy.

Chloe swallows and turns her head to the side. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her hand flat against Beca’s rib cage, “but I can’t… I’m not ready, Beca. I don’t… I don’t know if I ever will be.” She pulls her hand away, curling it into a fist and tucking it against her body. “I don’t hate you for what happened between us but it…” She shakes her head as Beca withdraws further, sinking back into her chair with a sort of heavy finality. “I don’t know if I can start over, after… after everything.”

Beca nods and takes a few deep, steadying breaths. “Right,” she says, her voice hoarse. She clears her throat and when she speaks next her words are stronger, her voice surer. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Chloe shakes her head. Beca can’t meet her gaze. “No don’t… don’t apologize. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, I just… don’t know if this is what I want. I mean it’s only been… it’s only been a few months since Raquel… and you and I live in different _states_ and it just doesn’t feel like the right—”

“You don’t have to keep explaining, Chloe,” Beca interrupts. She looks flushed. She still won’t look directly at Chloe. “I get it.”

“I’m sorry.”

Beca shakes her head. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have kissed you.” She stands from the table, her eyes still everywhere but Chloe’s face. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Beca…” Chloe reaches out towards her, arm half-extended, like she could keep Beca here and talking, like she could just explain and put it all back to normal if only Beca would stay and _listen_.

But Beca’s gone before Chloe can say anything else.

Chloe doesn’t chase after her.

**

**Chloe (7:22 a.m.)  
** _Beca kissed me last night._

**Chloe (8:52 a.m.)**  
_Please, Raquel.  
_ _I know you aren’t asleep._

**Raquel (9:15 a.m.)  
** _Chloe…_

 **Raquel (9:15 a.m.)**  
_Please don’t ask me to be this  
_ _person for you._

**Raquel (9:15 a.m.)  
** _Please don’t._

**Raquel (9:17 a.m.)  
** _I’m not strong enough for it._

**Chloe (9:25 a.m.)  
** _I’m sorry._

**Chloe (9:25 a.m.)  
** _I just… I miss you._

**Raquel (11:25 a.m.)  
** _I miss you, too._

 

**

In the morning, Beca slides Chloe a mug of coffee (black, not the way she usually takes it) with a small little smile and acts like the night before never even happened.

Chloe decides to follow her lead. At least as long as Emily’s around. Beca’s nervous enough about today without Chloe forcing another awkward conversation between the two of them. She needs to concentrate, needs to get shepherded around by her management team, needs to have the anxious buzz of energy around her focused on the issue at hand — mainly her album release party — and not whatever relationship drama she and Chloe have managed to dreg up in the 20 hours they’ve been in the same state.

Besides, Chloe feels like she made herself clear last night. She isn’t ready, isn’t prepared to give Beca what she seems to want. And besides not being ready, she doesn’t even know if a romantic relationship with Beca _is_ really what she wants. Considering where they are in their lives and where things stand between them and where they live and what they’re doing with their careers it just… it doesn’t make _sense_. Not for them. Not right now.

There was a time, not too long ago in fact, that Chloe would have done practically _anything_ to be in this position. Emotionally stable, financially secure, a fair amount of success and a good deal of accomplishments in both of their lives, both single for the first time in maybe 7 years… Two years ago, this would have been Chloe’s ideal situation. She would have _leapt_ at the opportunity to begin an actual, _legitimate_ romantic relationship with Beca.

But times change, and people change, and situations change, too. She isn’t the same person she was 2 years ago, 3 years ago, 7 years ago. She isn’t the same person. And neither is Beca. And while Chloe firmly believes they’ve both changed for the better, she also can’t help but recognize the irony of her situation.

She _finally_ has everything she ever wanted, laid out in front of her for the taking, and she…

She doesn’t think she wants it. Not anymore.

Not now, at least.

Not like this.

She loves Beca. She thinks she will _always_ love Beca.

But she only _just_ got her back in her life, only _just_ started patching up their relationship, only _just_ started having frank conversations about their past and everything that happened between them.

She loves Beca. She loves having her back in her life.

But it’s just… it’s too soon. It’s too much too quickly. It’s _too soon_.

She isn’t the same person she was in college. And neither is Beca. And they can’t pretend like they are, can’t go back to the way things were, can’t try and slip back into their old dynamic like there aren’t years of distance and hundreds of miles between them. They _can’t_.

She hopes Beca understands that.

She thinks that she does.

So Chloe accepts the coffee from Beca with a soft smile and the knowledge that they most certainly will have to have a long talk about what this means, about the state of their friendship, about how they perceive their relationship, about what they both want from this.

She knows they’ll have to talk about it.

But not today.

**

Beca’s party is huge. Chloe knew that Beca was a pretty big deal — what with her collaborations and the significant amount of radio-play her single has been getting — but it never really struck her that Beca was _A Big Deal_ until about ten minutes ago.

She feels small and entirely insignificant in this towering ballroom, surrounded by music producers, DJs, and B-list celebrities. With Aubrey’s hand tucked into her elbow, Chloe at least feels a little grounded.

But _boy_ is she out of her element, here.

The Bellas stick together. They’re chatting happily, for the most part, bouncing between the open bar, full buffet, and the large table towards the back of the room that their group claimed upon walking in. Everyone is buzzing with excitement, whispering and gaping with open awe at the towering ceilings, the lush spread of food and alcohol, the gaggle of press slipping between guests. There’s some sort of jazz-fusion band on stage in the front of the room playing just loud enough to be noticed but not too loud that the guests can’t still mingle and talk to one another. Between each one of their songs they’re met with polite applause from everyone except Beca, who stomps her feet and whistles loudly after every impressive vocal run and trumpet solo. From what Beca’s told her they’re some up-and-coming group from Atlanta with a small but devoted following. Beca fought hard to have them open for her.

Their group is blissfully unaware of Chloe’s building anxiety, at the way Chloe’s leg starts to bounce when she sits, at the way her palms are growing a little sweaty and her breathing comes out a little faster than normal as the big reveal draws closer and closer. The only one who looks anywhere close to as nervous as Chloe feels is Emily. They share a tight smile and Aubrey squeezes her arm just a little harder.

It’s exciting. It’s all incredibly, _unbelievably_ exciting. They spent hours dressing up, hours putting on makeup and doing their hair before piling into four different Ubers and managing to show up just late enough to be fashionable. They walked into the party practically arm-in-arm, and while most of the girls gasped with excitement or wonder, or dashed off for drinks or food or to try and sneak a picture with one of the minor celebrities they recognized, Chloe sticks to the back of the crowd, preferring to watch rather than immerse herself in the experience.

She’s only caught a few fleeting glimpses of Beca all night. For the most part Beca has been surrounded, swarmed by cameras and tape recorders, shaking hands with enthusiastic industry-types, constantly getting bits of advice whispered into her ear by her support staff.

She looks like the real deal, glamorous and famous with a fawning press circuit and with reporters eager for a quote, with producers wishing her luck and people Chloe’s only seen pictures of clapping her loudly on the back with wide, cheesy grins. She looks totally in her element, with her simple but well-cut black dress, her light but chique makeup, her hair curled and pushed to one side of her head, falling down around her shoulders and framing her face elegantly.

She looks stunning, and Chloe can’t stop watching her, can’t stop the way her breath catches in her throat when Beca’s hair swoops in front of her face, can’t stop remembering the night before and the way it felt when Beca’s lips brushed against hers…

Aubrey squeezes her arm again and Chloe blinks a few times, drawing her gaze away from Beca’s form at the front of the room.

Aubrey is staring at her with an expression so knowing that Chloe blushes all the way up to the tips of her ears. “ _What_?” She hisses at her friend.

Aubrey just shakes her head slowly. “Do you really think this is the best idea for you? After everything that happened in—”

“Beca and I are just _friends_ , Bree. Nothing more.”

Aubrey raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Oh really?”

Chloe clears her throat and slips her arm out of Aubrey’s grasp. “ _Yes_ , really,” she insists. She brings her champagne flute up to her lips, tipping her head back and downing the beverage in one long gulp. “I’m going to get another drink. Do you want one?”

“Chloe…”

But Chloe’s already drawing away from her. She’s not eager to stick around and get yet _another_ lecture from Aubrey, _especially_ not when she doesn’t deserve one.

She’s here to support Beca as a _friend_. That’s it. And she doesn’t appreciate the insinuation that she’s after something more, that she’s completely incapable of separating platonic feelings from romantic ones.

If she were after something more she wouldn’t have pushed Beca away last night, would she?

No, she wouldn’t have.

Almost as soon as Chloe has another drink in her hand the lights in the room dim. The applause grows as the opening band slides off the stage and Beca approaches the lone standing microphone at the front. She wipes her palms furtively on the sides of her dress before gripping the mic tightly between white-knuckled hands. She smiles nervously out at the rapt crowd.

“Um… hi,” she says softly. She pauses to clear her throat and bends closer to the mic. “So, I’m Beca Mitchell. And you’re all here to listen to some stuff I’ve made.” Beca shoots a nervous look towards the side of the stage. “Mark is gonna be really mad at me for this because I’m terrible at speeches and didn’t want to let anyone introduce me.” Soft laughter bubbles up from the audience. It seems to make Beca relax, if only slightly. Her smile widens. “Usually at parties like this, artists like to play a live set. But, if you’re familiar at all with my music, you’ll know that it’s pretty heavily produced and features a lot of instrumentation and a lot of vocalists and like… complex harmonies. And I didn’t want to put the pressure on any of my amazing friends to perform in this…” She pauses, like she’s weighing her word, “high-pressure situation.” Chloe can see Emily laugh loudly from her spot behind their table. Cynthia shushes her pointedly. “So I’m sorry for that.” A few people _aww_ disappointedly. Chloe takes another sip of her drink, completely mesmerized by the woman on stage.

Beca’s smile doesn’t waver. “I hope you like it either way. This, umm…” She clears her throat again. “This album means a lot to me. I wrote it at a really dark time in my life, so… Well, I hope you enjoy. Thanks again to everyone who put in such tireless work on this. And sorry, again, to Mark, for being terrible at public speaking.” More laughter from the audience. Beca flashes another smile. “Okay, so… here you go.”

The audience applauds as Beca slips from the stage. The Bellas, from their table in the back of the room, hoot and holler and scream Beca’s name over the sound of whistles and stomping feet. It’s a completely embarrassing display, and Beca flushes darkly from her spot by the stage, but Chloe can see that she’s mostly choking down a laugh.

The lights dim further and Chloe settles herself against the hard oak of the bar. She spins her drink around in her glass almost absent-mindedly as the room buzzes with excitement.

The first sounds crackle through the speakers and Chloe is immediately smiling.

A string section, low and humming, the tone rich and deep enough to make Chloe’s sternum thrum in her chest. The cellos pull through a minor refrain, and a lone violin tops the sound, drawing one mid-range note out for several long beats before falling a third, and then another. It’s a haunting sound; aching and melancholy. It feels like anticipation, like something building, like something lost. Like the wailing sound of a dark, Shakespearean tragedy.

Chloe mulls over the sounds, already thinking in her head how she’s going to compliment Beca on the sheer artistry of the composition, when the first words start.

 _Hey!_ A familiar voice laughs over the sounds of crescendo-ing violins, and Chloe nearly jumps out of her skin. _Guess I missed you. Call me back when you get this? I wanna get dinner. Okay love you, bye._

That’s… it’s _her_ voice. Those are her teasing words laid over Beca’s track, her voice, high-pitched and a little distorted but clear as a bell. She sounds different, almost unrecognizable, and it’s a little hard for even Chloe to tell that it’s her own voice, but she knows herself. She knows what her voice sounds like.

She _knows_ that message. She remembers that day, remembers the way she and Beca seemed to be playing phone-tag with each other for hours, the way her breathless voice had skimmed over the words _Okay love you, bye_ like it was almost nothing. The way she had hung up immediately. because The way that panic had gripped her heart almost as soon as she clicked _End_. Because that was the first time she ever accidentally told Beca that she loved her. It was seared into her memory like it happened yesterday.

She remembers that day. She remembers that message.

And now she’s standing in the middle of a hotel in LA, hearing it played back to her like some sort of strange ghostly echo.

Chloe is still blinking quickly in the back of the room, her head still reeling, thoughts still churning a mile a minute. The recording of her old phone message has long-since finished, and Cynthia Rose’s gravelly vocals are crooning over a weeping minor key. The lyrics don’t rhyme and there’s barely a discernable chorus — it sounds more like spoken word than the pop-song formula Chloe is used to hearing in Beca’s music — but Cynthia’s voice wavers and holds, drawing out syllables and lingering between phrases. It sends shivers down Chloe’s spine, a long and extending improvisation that makes her heart flip over.

 

 _I don’t know how long you’ve been gone._  
_I’ve lost track of the days I haven’t slept_  
_Since you left._

 _I still find traces of you_  
_In my room_  
_My bed_  
_My clothes._

_Oh I don’t know how long you’ve been gone  
I’ve lost track of the days I have left._

_I don’t know how long you’ve been gone,  
But I feel like I’m going too._

 

Chloe has to leave the room. She feels like she can’t breathe. The song drags to a winding close and applause explodes throughout the room but Chloe can’t be here, she can’t. She has to leave. It’s too much, too—

She stumbles outside, short of breath. It’s too hot in California. She feels like she’s completely stifled, like the air is choking her, like she’s stuck inside a balloon and she’s running out of oxygen.

It’s January but it’s still too fucking _hot_ in California.

“Chloe?” Beca’s voice calls out to her. Chloe can hear the music inside. She knows that it hasn’t stopped, knows that Beca must have seen her dart from the room, that Beca’s left her own release party to come out and find her.

She’s not sure how that makes her feel.

Beca’s hand feels cool on the bare skin of Chloe’s upper back. She shudders, not sure if she wants to recoil from the feeling or fall back into it. “Chloe?” Beca asks again, her voice quiet and nervous. “Are you okay?”

Chloe runs her hands over her face. She thinks she might be shaking, but she isn’t sure.

“Chloe…” Chloe takes a few steps to the side and Beca’s hand falls away from her back. Chloe runs rough fingers through her own hair. She leans her elbows against the iron railing and presses her fingers to her eyes hard enough that she sees spots.

She can feel Beca hovering nervously at her shoulder. “Talk to me, please?”

Chloe shakes her head. “That’s our _life_ , Beca.” Beca doesn’t say anything, but Chloe can hear her sharp intake of breath, even over her shoulder. Chloe turns to face her, fists and jaw clenched tightly. “You kept that message?”

“I…” Beca’s throat bobs as she swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, I kept it. And there are… there are more. In the album, I mean. You only stayed for one song but there are more.”

Chloe’s tongue feels thick in her mouth. “Why? I mean, that… that’s my _voice_. Those are… that’s a message I left you and I just—”

“They told me my old stuff _sucked_.” Chloe falls silent. She leans against a wrought-iron railing, gaze steady on Beca’s face. Beca wrings her hands together. “They said that… that there was no _heart_ behind it. There wasn’t any _emotion_. And you _know_ how bad I am with emotions, Chlo, I just… when I moved here you were the only thing I could think about. You, what happened between us, how much I hurt you, how I fucked it all up, and I just…” She shakes her head. “It isn’t an apology. I’m not trying to win you back, or anything. I just… this was the only way I could think to work through it all. I wasn’t even going to _show_ anyone until Mark — my manager, his name’s Mark — he heard one of the demo tracks one day, kind of by accident, and… I’ve never _seen_ him so excited. He basically demanded to hear the rest of it and I just… I don’t know. I showed him, and he told me with the straightest look on his face that if I released this stuff it would get me a Grammy.”

Chloe’s not sure how she’s supposed to process all of this information. It’s coming at her so quickly, zipping by her faster than she can catch. She shakes her head, eyebrows drawn. “So this was all about an _award_?”

“What?” Beca’s eyes widen. “No. No of _course_ not. It was just…” She looks sort of helpless as she trails off. Chloe can see the frustration in her eyes, in the tight skin at the edge of her mouth, in the way her brain seems to be fumbling for the right words. “I _needed_ to make this record,” she says after a few seconds. “And look, you’re right, I should have told you about it. But we weren’t talking and then by the time we _were_ talking it was already mostly recorded and done and I _tried_ to get them to take you off but the music was so much worse if it didn’t have those little moments in it, the things that like… that told the story. But still I threatened to back out if they kept you on the tracks but then that would have been breaking my contract and finally I told them you could stay but they had to take away any mention of who you were, or where you lived, or your name, or _my_ name, even, and… I don’t think anyone knows it’s you. _Legacy_ couldn’t even tell, and she practically _worshipped_ you at school. I mean she knows it’s _about you_ , that part is kind of obvious, but…” She trails off. Swallows. Bites her lip. “Are you seriously pissed at me?”

Chloe pauses. Thinks for a moment, brows furrowed. “…It _is_ beautiful; I’ll give you that,” she says after a moment.

Beca breathes out a sigh of relief. “You aren’t mad?”

Chloe shakes her head. “Oh, I’m _furious_. You used private recordings of our _private life_ and you’re about to release them for millions of people to just… listen to and talk about. That’s like… _peak_ voyeurism. And you _should_ have asked me first, even if we weren’t talking. It’s not fair of you to do this without telling me, or to ask me to be okay with it now that you’ve already done it.” Beca hangs her head and swallows thickly. Chloe can hear the soft plucking of a melancholy chorus from inside the hall. She takes a breath. “But you made something really incredible, Becs,” she continues, her voice considerably softer, her words much lighter. She feels no real animosity, no real anger. The music is _really_ beautiful. And Chloe’s always been a sucker for beautiful art. “And Em is right. It did make me cry.”

“I’m so sorry, Chloe,” Beca takes a step forward, laying an open hand on her upper arm. “I should have warned you.”

“Yeah,” Chloe nods, but she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t try to push Beca off of her. “You should have.”

“I won’t do anything like this again.”

“Well that’s ridiculous. You can’t start with a masterpiece and then not try and do better next time.”

Beca blinks at her, her mouth falling a little slack. “You… think it’s a masterpiece?”

Chloe’s mouth quirks up to one side, a little half-smile that she can’t force down. “I bet I’m not the only one.”

Emily’s voice, usually so bright and ringing, wafts softly out on the gentle night air. It swirls around them, cuts into the space between them, hangs over their heads and filters through Chloe’s ear almost unbidden.

 

 _And after it all,_  
_It’s you. You are the thing that_  
_I regret losing._

**

She isn’t the only one. The reviews are astounding. People _rave_ about Beca’s music, and not just returning fans and not just her friends and family and not just critics. _Everyone_. They can’t get enough of it.

She’s basically a first-time artist, but she sells almost 80,000 copies of her album in the first week. And that’s just the _first week_.

Chloe sends her link after link after link to reviews from _Pitchfork, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Rolling Stone_. Each one a glowing commendation. Each one longer and more exciting than the one before it.

She follows up her research with a simple text.

 **Chloe (11:29 a.m.)  
** _Told you so._

**


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Chloe leaves Los Angeles feeling… many different things. Some of them good, some of them bad. Almost all of them confusing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is guys. Last chapter. Thank you so much for sticking with me through all of this. I know there have been some ups and downs, and I know that I really can’t get anything out anywhere close to on time. But I hope it was worth the wait.
> 
> As always, feel free to come talk to me on [ tumblr.](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

Distance is good. Distance helps.

Chloe leaves Los Angeles feeling… many different things. Some of them good, some of them bad. Almost all of them confusing.

It was incredible to be there, incredible to be back with her friends, incredible to see Aubrey and Amy and Emily and Cynthia Rose and Stacie. Incredible to feel so welcome and so at home and so close to so many people. Especially after her years of extended and self-imposed isolation. It was incredible in so many ways.

Seeing Beca was… it was a lot of things. Many of them good. Some of them not-so-good.

 _All_ of them confusing.

But distance is good. Distance helps. Leaving LA and returning to Denver is a welcome relief from the turmoil her life seems to have fallen into in recent months. Being with her closest friends had of course been incredible, but Chloe would be lying if she said that she wasn’t looking forward to her own solitude, again. At least a little bit. At least in part. Because, while being in Los Angeles had certainly been a welcome experience, it had also been… complicated. To say the least.

Things between her and Beca since the kiss have been… not _different,_ not exactly, but not… definitely not the _same_. A little tense, a little wrought with emotion, a little cautious, like they’re trying to feel each other out again. Not exactly different from how their interactions used to be, but definitely lacking the practiced ease of the past year or so.

Truthfully, Chloe doesn’t know _what_ to think about it all. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to _feel_ about the situation. She doesn’t know if she should be elated at this confirmation of Beca’s feelings, furious that it’s coming about so late in their friendship — after so many years of pain and suffering and mutual hurt— guilty because of the lack of closure surrounding her relationship with Raquel, or heartbroken that this is all happening _now_ when it all really feels like _too little too late._

She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel about it.

And she has _no idea_ who she’s supposed to be able to talk to.

She only has three people in her life she really wants to discuss any of this with. First, there’s Aubrey, who is out of the question for _many_ obvious reasons, chief among them being that she would probably fly out to California and strangle Beca in her sleep if she thought Beca was trying to play any sort of games with Chloe’s happiness and/or love life. She can describe Aubrey in many ways, but ‘trusting’ is not one of them, and ‘forgiving’ is certainly not high on the list, either. So, she’s out.

Second is Raquel, who she is reluctant to talk to about this sort of thing because it feels so remarkably cruel to ask her ex-girlfriend for help dealing with her potentially-future-girlfriend. Things between them have been so confusing recently, so painful, have felt so much like an _almost_ and a _maybe_ and a _we could have been_ that the idea of bringing this situation up is… inadvisable. Definitely inadvisable. So, there’s no way she’s going to reach out to Raquel.

And lastly, there’s Beca. And she _absolutely_ cannot talk to Beca about _any_ of this. It would only add to the mess of a situation. And yes, Chloe can appreciate the irony of the fact that a lack of communication is what ruined them the first time around. She can appreciate the fact that talking and hashing out her feelings with an equal partner is possibly the most important foundation to a healthy and stable relationship. She can appreciate the irony that now that she _desperately_ wants to talk to someone, wants to work it all out, wants to dig down into the nitty gritty of it all, she has no one she can open up to. She appreciates all of that. She can recognize it for what it is.

But also, she can’t _possibly_ be expected to work out her feelings for Beca and their whole situation _while she’s talking to Beca_.

That’s just absurd.

**

She calls Emily. Maybe it’s a mistake, maybe it’s ill-advised, but she calls Emily. Emily, who may be the only person close enough to this situation to understand it _and_ who also happens to be unbiased and somewhat-equally devoted to both sides.

She calls Emily because she doesn’t really know what to do. And it feels a little wrong, to place all the pressure of her own tangled mess of a life on the kid like that, but Chloe’s feeling a little desperate. She’s feeling a little lost, a little unsure of herself, and dying for a bit of guidance. So, though it feels wrong to call upon someone 7 years her junior to give her life advice ( _God_ , what has her life come to?) she calls Emily because she feels like she has to. Also, she doesn’t know what to do.

Her bright face appears on Chloe’s laptop within moments. _“Hi!”_ She beams. _“This is a nice surprise. You rarely call to check in with me. Everything go okay with your flight home?”_

Chloe nods, more than a little distracted. “Everything’s fine, Em. I just…” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I just needed some advice,” she finally murmurs out, tamping down the embarrassment, refusing to let it take hold.

Emily’s grin gets impossibly wider. _“This is awesome!”_ She claps her hands together and bounces in her seat. _“I feel like I’m finally being initiated into the Bellas. Please, ask away. I am a fountain of knowledge, waiting for you to drink at my spout.”_

Chloe grimaces. “Maybe try a less-creepy metaphor next time?”

_“Yup, sounded weird as soon as it came out. As it was coming out I knew it was a no.”_

Chloe has to laugh, just a little. If this call does nothing else, it at least lightened her otherwise pretty sullen mood. Maybe this was all she really needed. Maybe she just needed to talk to someone young and excited, someone full of life and bursting with anxious energy. Maybe all she needed was to be reminded that life exists far outside her comparably tiny sphere of reference.

She takes a breath and ruminates in her feelings. She pauses and digs down into her chest, reaches as far back into her mind as she can manage, and tries to come to terms with what she’s feeling.

It feels heavy. It feels like a lot. It feels like it’s a lot more complicated than a quick exchange with a 22 year-old can fix.

It feels like she needs to actually seek out some real advice. (It also feels like she definitely does not want to do that, but… she’s already here.)

Chloe exhales the breath she didn’t know she had been holding and fixes her eyes on Emily’s face, a little out of focus and a little pixelated. She watches her closely, for any hint of a lie. “You knew that album was about me, right?”

Emily blushes and fidgets in her seat. She opens her mouth, ready to deny, but a quick glance at Chloe’s face has her deflating instantly. Instead, she nods. _“Yeah. Beca tried to pretend it wasn’t, when I asked her, but she’s… not really that good at keeping secrets. And it wasn’t really all that subtle.”_

When Chloe swallows, her throat feels sharp. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Emily fidgets a little more and looks away, down at her hands. Her fingers are wringing together almost painfully, but she looks like she doesn’t know how to stop. _“I don’t know,”_ she admits quietly. _“I guess I thought that, um… it was like really romantic? Like… writing a whole album about how much she loves you. And playing it in front of you, dressed all fancy at this fancy party…”_

“Em, this…” Chloe shakes her head. “This isn’t a _movie_. Stuff like that doesn’t actually happen in real life. Just because she wrote an album about me doesn’t mean that—”

 _“No,”_ Emily cuts her off quickly. _“No, I know that. I just… I really think you guys loved each other, once. And recording this with Beca, it just… made me think that she really still loves you. Like a lot.”_ She pauses and takes a breath, finally looking up from her clenched hands. _“She wrote an_ album _about you, Chloe.”_ She says, so earnestly that if Chloe’s heart hadn’t been thumping so loudly in her chest that she could barely hear her own thoughts, she almost would have called in endearing.

As it stands, she shakes her head, almost incredulously. “It’s not really that special,” she lies, because it _is_. It _is_ that special. At least, it _feels_ like it is. It feels like something big and momentous and something more than what she’s ready for. But it’s easier to lie, at least about this, so she does. “Taylor Swift does that every time she breaks up with someone.”

 _“Yeah!”_ Emily says, like Chloe’s the dumbest person on the planet. _“And she’s Taylor Freaking Swift!”_ She puts her chin in her left hand, the fingers of her right tracing some invisible pattern on the metal of her computer. _“I just… wanted you to hear it,”_ she says softly, much demurer than moments before. _“Without knowing anything about it going in, just… just to hear it. Just once, like it was meant to be heard. Start to finish, no breaks, just… just the music.”_

And Chloe, in a weird way, kind of gets it. She gets that sort of reverence for music that Emily has, that _Thing_ that she shares with Beca that makes them both so much more skilled in this field than Chloe could ever hope to be. She understands that _Thing_ , that drive, that acknowledgement of music as a pure art form, that understanding of music as High Art, as something not to be consumed haphazardly or without purpose. She understands the desire to immerse oneself in an album, to lean a head against a pillow and close heavy eyes and listen, just listen, for a quietly full hour, digesting the sound the way the creator intended it to be digested.

In a weird way, she kind of gets it. “I guess I’m glad I did,” she says finally, when it feels like Emily has nothing more to contribute.

Emily nods, her face calm in a way Chloe’s rarely seen it. She looks older, now. Older than Chloe’s ever noticed. She’s not the shy ingénue she once was. She’s no longer that hyper-active 18-year-old who showed up on their doorstep the very first week of Chloe’s last year in school. She looks wise, almost knowing. And when she speaks, Chloe listens, in a way she’s never really listened before. _“She loves you, you know,”_ Emily says like it’s the easiest thing in the world, like she hasn’t gone and tipped Chloe’s entire life on its head. _“She’s always really loved you.”_

It feels big. It feels like… it feels like something. But for all the ways it makes Chloe tremble, it’s also almost relaxing. It feels a little bit like coming home. “I know,” she says finally. “I didn’t… I didn’t always know. But…” She nods. “I know now. It’s always… It’s always been her, hasn’t it?”

Emily doesn’t answer her question, but Chloe never meant for her to. It was intended to be rhetorical. Instead, Emily asks a question of her own. _“Do you think it’s enough?”_

Chloe shakes her head. “I don’t know, Em. I guess I hope it is.”

**

She doesn’t tell Beca about her conversation with Emily, doesn’t tell her about her near-epiphany, doesn’t tell her that the feelings she’s been bottling up inside of herself for close to 7 years are finally starting to come to a head, are finally pushing at the seams of Chloe’s consciousness, are finally starting to batter on the walls of her heart and mind. She doesn’t tell her that she doesn’t think she can keep ignoring it.

Instead, they talk. And things return to almost-normal. Normal in the way that they interact, normal in the way that Chloe continues to show up at school every day and teach her classes. Normal in the way that Beca returns to promoting her record, talk shows and magazine articles and newspaper interviews and all. Normal in the way that their biweekly phone calls and FaceTime sessions turn into something that necessitates four-times-a-week of interactions instead of two.

But abnormal in the way that every time Beca’s face appears on her laptop or cellphone or caller ID, Chloe’s heart constricts in her chest. Abnormal in the way that Chloe finds herself staying up much later than she’s used to reading article after article after article about Beca’s album, her successes, her sudden catapult into the spotlight. Abnormal in the way that now when she Googles ‘Beca Mitchell’ she’s linked to a _New York Times_ profile, a collection of shots from the winter issue of _Vogue_ that should _honestly_ be illegal, and an interview with Seth Meyers that Chloe’s watched so many times she basically has it memorized.

(Beca doesn’t mention her in the interview, but she _almost_ does. She gets close — unbelievably close — but she doesn’t mention her. Not exactly.)

(But Chloe would have to be an idiot not to know what she was talking about.)

In case you were wondering, it goes like this:

~~

 _Seth Meyers:_ You know her from such hits as “You’ve Got Me _,_ ” “Since You Left,” and “October _._ ” Her new album, _Pastoral,_ is available right now on iTunes and all available streaming platforms. Please welcome my next guest, the lovely, the talented, Beca Mitchell!

**Applause.**

_Seth Meyers:_ Hi, welcome!

 _Beca Mitchell:_ Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

 _Seth Meyers:_ This is the first time you’ve been on this show, right?

 _Beca Mitchell ( **smiling** ): _This is actually my first talk show ever.

 _Seth Meyers:_ Really? No.

 _Beca Mitchell:_ Really. I’m very new at this, so go easy on me.

**Studio laughter.**

_Seth Meyers ( **smiling** ): _Well, I’m honored. Now, let’s talk about your album. This album, I have to say, it… it’s very interesting.

**Long pause.**

_Beca Mitchell:_ Oh?

**Studio laughter.**

_Seth Meyers ( **smiling** ): _No, I mean it! And we just heard — it came out today, right? — that you’ve been nominated for, I think it’s… three Grammy Awards?

**Applause.**

_Beca Mitchell ( **smiling** ): _Yes, thank you. Thank you. It’s… all pretty surreal, at the moment. I’m kind of having trouble wrapping my head around it.

 _Seth Meyers:_ This is your first album, correct?

 _Beca Mitchell:_ Yeah, this is the first thing I ever created on my own.

 _Seth Meyers:_ Wow, and three Grammy nominations? Your parents must be so proud.

 _Beca Mitchell:_ They didn’t even cry this much when I graduated from college.

**Studio laughter.**

_Seth Meyers:_ The album, it’s very… it — it’s told backwards, right?

 _Beca Mitchell:_ It sounds like it. I know what you mean. I can see why you would think that.

 _Seth Meyers:_ Right. The beginning of the album is the end of a relationship and the last song — “Where Should We Begin?” — that’s very—

 _Beca Mitchell:_ It isn’t actually told in reverse. I mean, I know why you would think that. The beginning is an end and the end is a beginning. But it’s not a relationship in reverse. It’s sort of… it’s the story of rebirth, of… of rebuilding. Of slowly working up and over and trying to salvage something from… from the wreckage.

 _Beca Mitchell ( **smiling nervously** ): _Sorry, I’ve never really spoken this much about something I’ve made, before. It’s still sort of hard for me.

 _Seth Meyers:_ Please, don’t let me stop you! It’s fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. And very… from what I’ve been told, it’s a very personal album?

 _Beca Mitchell:_ Yeah. I went through… college wasn’t the best for me. I had a lot of problems. Did a lot of things I’m not proud of. But I also met some amazing people, and that’s how I got the inspiration for this album.

 _Seth Meyers:_ You also won 3 national collegiate acapella competitions and 1 international competition?

 _Beca Mitchell ( **smiling** ): _Well… that too.

**Studio laughter. Applause.**

_Seth Meyers:_ I understand you have an interesting story from that time, too. With one of your teammates and former President Obama?

 _Beca Mitchell:_ **Groans.**

**Studio laughter.**

_Beca Mitchell:_ Okay, I won’t go into full detail here, but let’s just say there was a… wardrobe malfunction that involved the Kennedy Center, aerial silks, and musket twirling.

**Studio laughter.**

_Beca Mitchell ( **smiling** ): _If you all want the full story you can Google ‘Muffgate 2015’ and it’ll be the first link. Also, follow my girl Amy on Twitter. She’s: @TheNotoriousF.A.T. She’ll be grateful for the followers. Also, she’s hilarious.

**Studio laughter. Applause.**

_Seth Meyers ( **smiling** ): _Well, I’m afraid we have to go to commercial, but thank you so much for being here, and congratulations again.

 _Beca Mitchell:_ Thank you so much.

 _Seth Meyers:_ Your album it – it really is spectacular. You should be very proud.

 _Beca Mitchell:_ Thank you.

 _Seth Meyers ( **to camera** ): Pastoral _is available for purchase and on all streaming platforms today. When we come back, Beca Mitchell will perform her hit single “October.” Stick around, we’ll be right back.

~~

(She’s watched the live performance countless times, too. But that’s a little less embarrassing.)

**

_“The Grammys are next month.”_

Chloe bites her lip and tilts her head, tapping her pointer finger on the tip of her nose. She frowns in mock-concentration. “Hmm… I think I remember reading about those somewhere.”

Beca rolls her eyes. _“Chloe, I’m serious.”_

“So am I, Beca. I think I remember reading about them somewhere.”

_“Come with me.”_

The joking smile falls from Chloe’s face immediately. “What?” She asks, her shoulders collapsing. The chair she had been leaning back in falls to the floor, jolting her.

Beca is looking at her, smiling at her with such a careful, heartbreaking expression that Chloe feels her stomach flip. _“This album wouldn’t exist without you. It wouldn’t be… without you, it wouldn’t be anything.”_ She bites her lip. Her face is open, her eyes hopeful. Her hair is curled, her face still fully made up from whatever interview her publicist had ushered her off to earlier in the afternoon. She looks a little exhausted, but mostly she looks _happy_. She looks so easily, effortlessly happy, that Chloe aches to feel it too. _“So… come with me.”_

“I…” Chloe shakes her head, still fumbling around for her words. “You… want to bring me to the _Grammys_?”

_“I really do.”_

~~

Chloe chews on her lower lip, her knee bouncing nervously, her foot tapping a dizzying staccato on the floor of her kitchen. She has her cellphone pressed to her ear and she waits with baited breath while it rings once, twice, a third time.

A sleepy and confused _“Hello?”_ grunts through the line and Chloe feels everything that’s been bottled up inside of her practically bursting to come out.

“Beca wants me to go to the Grammys with her,” she says in one quick breath, her words tripping over each other.

A long pause on the end of the line. What sounds like someone shifting around in bed. _“Chloe?”_ Aubrey asks, words still muddled with sleep, a hint of annoyance twitching at the edge of her voice.

“Yes, Aubrey, _obviously_ it’s me. Who else would call you at one in the morning?”

_“Actually, it’s three where I am, and I have work tomorrow at six, so—”_

“Beca wants to take me to the Grammys.”

A long sigh. _“I heard you the first time.”_

“Well… you didn’t say anything.”

_“What could I say, Chloe? Obviously you’re going to go.”_

“Wh—” Chloe splutters— “How could you… I don’t even know if I _want_ to go!”

Aubrey yawns, loud and pronounced. Something rustles through the line. _“Of course you do. You wouldn’t have called me if you were confused.”_

“You’re _exactly_ the person I would call if I was confused. Because I _am_ confused. And I’m _calling_ _you_.”

Another, longer yawn. _“No,”_ Aubrey says, smacking her lips. _“Because every time I tell you to do something you take it as an excuse to go and do the exact opposite. And you_ know _I don’t like Beca, and you_ know _I think it’s a bad idea for you to spend so much time with her, and you also knew what I was going to say when you called to tell me she asked you to go to the Grammys.”_ Aubrey yawns again. _“But you called. Because you wanted an excuse to go.”_

Chloe sits in her kitchen, mouth agape and disbelieving. She doesn’t speak. She _can’t_ speak.

 _“So,”_ Aubrey says after a moment, _“have I fulfilled my obligation to you? Can you just go to LA and let her confess her undying love to you and then you can… I don’t know. Slap her. Or sleep with her. I guess it’s your choice. You know I vote for slapping her, though.”_

“I…” Chloe feels like she can’t breathe. “ _Aubrey_ ,” she implores, almost whispers, but Aubrey doesn’t let her finish her thought.

 _“Don’t worry about it, Chlo,”_ she says tiredly. _“That’s what best friends are for. Also, if you could slap her_ before _you sleep with her, I would appreciate that.”_

Chloe nods just for something to do, because her eyes are glassy and out of focus and she feels like she’s tipping over backwards. She grips the cold stone of her countertop to try and feel a little more grounded, but all it does is make her fingers numb.

She nods like Aubrey can see her, like Aubrey knows what she’s doing.

But, then again, maybe she does.

_“Okay, so… I love you, but I’m exhausted. And I have to go to sleep. So call me tomorrow, maybe? And we can talk about this more?”_

“Yeah, sure,” Chloe says, her words barely making it past her straining vocal chords. Her throat feels as tight as her chest.

_“And Chloe?”_

“Hmm?”

Aubrey sighs. _“Tell her that I thought her album was really beautiful. And, if she wins, she better mention the Bellas in her speech.”_ And then she hangs up, leaving Chloe alone in her kitchen in the middle of the goddamn night, with her world seemingly crumbling to pieces around her.

Chloe stares at her phone, blinks for several long moments, and then shakes her head. Aubrey may be her best friend, but _boy_ is she confusing.

She turns her attention from her now-dark cellphone to the computer she has open in front of her. She runs her finger over the trackpad and brings it back to life, illuminating the webpage she had opened before she called Aubrey.

A list of non-stop flights from Denver to Los Angeles.

Chloe sighs. _Damn_ Aubrey for being right.

**

She goes. Because of course she does.

Like she ever had any other choice.

**

If Chloe thought Beca’s album release party was nuts, it had nothing on _this_. She’s never actually _seen_ a stylist team in action before and it is… _wow_. It’s something else.

They do Beca’s hair and makeup early in the afternoon — much too early, in Chloe’s opinion, because now that Beca’s got her face done up she can’t really _do_ anything else. She can’t go outside, because she looks ridiculous in her thousand-dollar makeup and a pair of sweats and a ratty old t-shirt that Chloe thinks might have once been _hers_ , way back in the day. She can’t eat, for obvious reasons. She can’t do much more than lounge around her apartment looking bored out of her mind while she flicks through her Netflix queue.

Chloe sits down to join her before a strong hand on her elbow stops her and she looks up, blinking in surprise, to meet the level gaze of Beca’s lead stylist, Antonio, a man with potentially the best hair Chloe’s ever seen in her _life_ and a beard that looks so effortlessly sculpted she feels a little jealous she can’t grow one like it.

“Up,” he says to her, tugging lightly on her arm.

“I… what?” She asks, completely bewildered.

“We’ve gotta do you too, Hon,” he says, dragging her to the chair Beca’s only just vacated. “Boss’ orders.”

Chloe’s head whips toward where Beca sits on the couch, trying to swallow down her laughter. “ _Beca_ ,” she hisses, “what—?”

Antonio grabs her chin and forces her back towards the mirror. “Eyes front,” he warns, and all Chloe can do is close her eyes, sigh, and allow Beca’s team to flit around her busily.

~~

The team ushers them off into two different rooms to get changed into their dresses. Chloe feels fancier than she’s ever felt in her life, what with her bright blue dress that sparkles even more than the monstrosity she wore to her senior prom. She has glittering jewels dangling from her ears, a thin silver band around her neck, and a pair of shoes that she _knows_ must be beautiful, for how much they make her feet ache. Her hair is professionally done, her makeup is professionally done, and as she stands, staring into the full-length mirror of Beca’s guest bedroom, a woman she barely recognizes stares back at her.

It’s her, obviously, but… _more_. It’s her but older; her but sophisticated; her but dressed like she’s about to go to the goddamn _Grammys_ and it’s just… it’s a lot.

Her hand trembles as she brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. It might sound weird, because Chloe’s not exactly a person who’s lacking in self-confidence, but… she doesn’t think she’s ever looked more beautiful.

And… is it weird, that this whole thing kind of feels like her wedding?

( _Boy_ , that is a can of worms she does _not_ want to open right now.)

When she finally leaves the bedroom and enters the foyer, she’s the last one to arrive. (Of course she is; it always took her longer to get ready than Beca.)

Beca stands with her team — the three stylists, her publicist (a woman Chloe has never particularly liked), and Mark — conferring in a quiet group about… something that probably matters but which goes way above Chloe’s head.

She feels a little out of her depths, here. A little like she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

She tries to be inconspicuous, tries to hang back in the dark shadows of Beca’s living room, tries not to interrupt their conversation because she _knows_ it’s important and she _knows_ it matters to Beca and just because _she_ doesn’t know what the hell is happening doesn’t mean that everyone _else_ doesn’t need to understand the logistics of tonight.

She tries to be inconspicuous, but it doesn’t work, because her dress really _is_ the brightest thing she’s ever worn and she’s at least 4 inches taller than she usually is, thanks to her heels, and her hair is nicely coiffed and curled, falling just above her shoulders, the bright red like a homing beacon that seems to attract every eye in the room, one at a time.

The makeup artists see her first (Maria and Emma, Chloe remembers), and they both react quietly but in a way that makes Chloe flush from her chest all the way to the crown of her head. Maria puts a hand to her mouth and Emma beams, her eyes a little glassy, and Chloe has to fight the urge to look down at her own feet (because she’s 28 years old, goddammit. She’s a goddamn _adult_. She shouldn’t be blushing and looking down at her feet like some sixteen-year-old who just got her braces off and now everyone at school is noticing that she’s not completely hideous for the first time).

Maria and Emma notice her first, and then it’s like Dominos. Antonio peers over Mark’s shoulder, a grin splitting his cheeks when he catches sight of her. The publicist glances at her, nods once approvingly, and then returns to her schedule. Mark turns slightly, tilting his head, his eyes scanning her from top to bottom. He smiles too, and whistles lowly in compliment.

But she doesn’t look at any of them. Because all she can see is Beca.

She’s wearing this dress, this deep, dark red dress that hits the floor and trails off behind her in a simple but elegant train. It has a deep, plunging V that Chloe has to force herself not to gawk at. Beca’s neck looks long, accentuated by a simple, gleaming necklace and earrings that look like they were crafted perfectly to match Chloe’s. Her hair is up, pinned back in a loose bun with one lone strand of hair falling out to frame her face perfectly.

God. She looks _perfect_.

And, yeah. If Chloe didn’t know she was done for already, she definitely does now.

~~

“You know, Mark told me it was really brave of me, when I told him I was bringing you as a date?”

Chloe blinks at her across the plush leather of the limousine. (God, she’s in a _limousine_. This really _is_ like prom.) “Why?” She asks carefully, unsure of the answer she’s about to receive, unsure if she’s about to be complimented or insulted.

Beca shrugs, continuing to look out the window at the landscape slowly slipping by them. She waves a hand. “Something about me ‘coming out so publicly,’ or something like that.”

Chloe’s brows furrow. “ _Are_ you? Coming out? Is that… is that what you’re doing tonight?”

Beca glances at her. “I guess? I’ve never really… I mean, it’s not like I’m _not_ out. I haven’t like… talked about it in interviews, or anything. But it’s the 21 st century. A bisexual artist isn’t really something new.”

Chloe lets out a little puff of air that might be a laugh or might be something else. She’s not entirely sure. “Do you… are you sure you want to do it like this?”

Beca shrugs again. “Why not? It’ll happen soon enough; might as well happen now.”

It sounds ominous but Chloe knows it isn’t supposed to be. It sounds like a teasing sort of premonition, but Chloe knows that that’s just her own anxious mind conjuring up a collection of nervous fears.

Now that she’s sitting here, inches from Beca, headed to the most public event of either of their lives, it dawns on Chloe that she really _is_ brave, for doing what she’s doing. For bringing a woman as her date to this huge, public event (even if it _is_ platonically, which Chloe strongly suspects it isn’t). This can’t be easy for her. She acts like it is, but then, Beca’s never really been big on expressing or disclosing her feelings.

This can’t be easy for her. This kind of public display, this kind of look into her personal life, this sort of sharing of intimacy… it’s exactly the kind of thing Beca loathes. She likes her privacy, she likes keeping her secrets close to her chest, she likes the familiarity of a few close confidants. She doesn’t like broadcasting her business to a group of ten of her closest friends, much less to millions of people.

So that begs the question: why? Why is she doing this? Why did she do _any_ of this? Because, if Chloe’s being honest, it really doesn’t make much sense.

Why would Beca write this album, expose herself so publicly, when this is _exactly_ the kind of thing she detests? When, for the entire time Chloe’s known her, she has been so _adamant_ about keeping her secrets just that, a secret?

And then it dawns on her, so suddenly and so clearly that she feels like the world’s biggest idiot for not noticing it sooner.

It’s for her. It’s all for her. It’s _always_ been for her.

This is how Beca is choosing to prove herself. This is how she’s proving to Chloe that she’s different, that she’s changed, that she isn’t the same girl she was when they met all those years ago.

She bared herself to the entire world. She exposed every bit of her dirty laundry to millions and millions of people for them to look at, pick through, and analyze. She did the one thing she hates most in the world to prove to Chloe that she _can_ , that she _wants to_ , that she can be a new person, that she’s changed, that secrets and lies are all things in her past, and her future is an open book.

Of course. It’s for her. It’s _always been for her_.

Chloe’s nerves spike just a little, entirely without her permission. Her palms start to sweat and she tries to wipe them surreptitiously on the hem of her dress.

She tries not to let it show, but she must not be very successful.

“Hey,” Beca reaches a hand across the backseat of the limo. She slides her fingers in between Chloe’s and squeezes tightly. Chloe looks over at her and smiles weakly, her mind moving at a million miles a minute, her heart racing in her chest, her nerves absolutely fried. “Thank you for coming with me,” Beca says with an easy smile, completely unaware that Chloe’s in the middle of a very intense epiphany at the moment. Her thumb rubs across Chloe’s knuckles as she continues to speak. “I feel a lot better knowing I have someone in my corner.”

Chloe smiles at her. Squeezes her hand back. “If you’re half as nervous as I am, I don’t know how you’re gonna get through tonight.”

Beca laughs and the sound is like a palpable relief. Chloe feels herself relaxing immediately. “You are not allowed to say shit like that, dude! C’mon! I’m dying over here.”

Chloe grins and gives Beca’s hand one more long, firm squeeze. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she apologizes with a chuckle. “You’re going to do great. It’s going to be _amazing_. And when you win, I’m sure your speech is going to be the perfect amount of self-deprecating to win over the millions of people watching at home.”

Beca flushes. “You don’t _know_ I’m going to win.”

“I don’t know, Becs,” Chloe says with a teasing air of mystery. “I have a good feeling about tonight.”

~~

She wins.

And while nothing about Beca should _really_ surprise Chloe anymore, and while Chloe _had_ confidently told Beca she was positive about her imminent victory… she can’t help but be a little surprised. Beca just keeps on surprising her.

She wins. Chloe hadn’t expected a different result — because she’s Beca’s friend and she’s _unbelievably_ biased and Beca’s album was the best by far — but the joy she feels the moment the announcer on stage shouts “Beca Mitchell” is completely indescribable. And for a first time release to win ‘Best New Artist’ is _really_ extraordinary, even for someone as extraordinary as Beca.

She stands on shaky legs while the room erupts into deafening applause. She turns to look at Chloe, who is grinning at her with tears in her eyes. She wraps her arms around Beca’s shoulders tightly and holds her for a second, reveling in the moment, before she pulls back and shoves her toward the stage with a laugh and a prodding “Go, Becs!”

Beca walks toward the stage on legs that surely look more confident than they feel and the room cheers and applauds, but no one louder than Chloe.

When she gets to the podium, she looks tiny. She’s a small person, Chloe’s always known this, but even in her heels and her long gown she looks almost child-like.

She clutches the trophy in her right hand, staring at it in utter disbelief as she remains at the microphone, quiet for a few long seconds.

Someone in the audience cheers, and then the room starts applauding again, and Chloe is smiling so wide she thinks her face might fall off from the sheer strain of it.

Beca blinks, her eyes wide and glistening under the bright lights.

“Umm…” Beca starts off, glancing around the room like she isn’t sure what to say. “I’m… I’m so sorry.” She laughs, and it’s cute and modest and the room eats it up. “I’m so sorry. I met… I met Beyoncé tonight and I think I’m _still_ in shock.” Raucous laughter. Chloe shoots her a thumbs up that she isn’t sure Beca sees.

Beca smiles shyly. “Wow. _Wow_ I can’t… I honestly can’t believe this. Like… I mean you guys _saw_ those other artists in this category, right? Like… you’re sure there wasn’t some mistake?” More laughter, more applause. “Like, not even joking, I’m kind of serious, because these other guys… wow. I can’t even tell you what an honor it was to even be _nominated_ with these other artists. Phil and Emma and Andre and Tank and Jake and just… wow. You guys, _wow_.”

She looks up and seems to notice something on the teleprompter. “Oh shit, I’m almost out of time. And like half of this speech has been me saying ‘wow’.” More laughter. She grins wryly. “Okay, um… I’m not gonna get everyone because I don’t have time but I promise I’ll call all of you tonight,” she says in a rush. “Okay, to Mark, my manager. To all of the amazing people at Primoria House for working with me through good times and bad. To my parents, for always supporting me and pushing me to do what’s right, especially through my angsty college years. To all of my incredible friends. To the Barden Bellas, who gave me the kick in the butt I needed to start this journey. To my girls Emily Junk and Cynthia Rose; I would have had _nothing_ without your incredible work. Thank you so much.” She clears her throat, and Chloe thinks she must nearly be done by now.

“And finally,” she says, eyes bright and clear and searching, and Chloe doesn’t know how it’s possible, but Beca finds her in the crowd. Somehow, she finds her.

They lock eyes.

Time stands still.

“Finally,” Beca says, and Chloe doesn’t know why the room is suddenly so silent but it’s gone deathly quiet and she isn’t sure why. “To Chloe Beale.” She hoists the statue higher and Chloe’s heart stops. “I was a mess before you, and honestly I’m a mess after. But you… you were everything behind this album. You were… my heart, and my guiding light, and my inspiration, even when you didn’t know it. I owe everything to you.” She swallows. “I can’t thank you enough, I can’t _begin_ to pay you back… to make up for…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know where I’d be without you. But I know I love you, and I always have. So, thank you.”

She turns back to the audience and the spell is broken. “Thank you, again. Thank you all for this incredible honor.”

Thunderous applause as the music swells and Beca makes her way backstage.

The girl sitting next to Chloe puts a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?” She asks softly.

Chloe feels shell-shocked. “I’m fine,” she says out of the corner of her mouth, her eyes never leaving the stage. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just… you’re crying.”

~~

“You’re crying, Chlo.” That’s the first thing Beca says when Chloe manages to catch up with her backstage.

Chloe nods. “I am.”

“Why?”

“You know I’ve waited over seven years for you to tell me you love me?”

Beca swallows. “I know. I know, and I’m so sorry that I haven’t—”

Chloe cuts her off. “If you were gonna do it, though, might as well do it in front of millions of people on national television.”

Beca bites her lip. Her hands slip a little on the statue she’s holding and she has to readjust her grip. “I know,” she says, and Chloe might be aware that they have something of an audience right now but honestly she’s never cared less about something in her life. All she cares about is what Beca says next. “I should have asked, I should have talked to you before—”

“You know this doesn’t fix what you did, right?” Chloe says quickly. Beca falls silent. Stares back at her with wide, unblinking eyes. “This doesn’t… you can’t just make a grand, dramatic, sweeping gesture and expect everything to go back to normal.”

“I know.” Beca nods. “I know that. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life fixing it, making you trust me again, because the stupidest thing I ever did, Chloe, was jerk you around and hurt you. The stupidest thing I ever did was lose you. And I know I hurt you a _lot_. And I know it isn’t an excuse, but I was young and you terrified me and I didn’t know _how_ I was supposed to—”

“Shut up, Beca.”

Chloe kisses her. They’re wearing makeup, full faces courtesy of Beca’s styling team, and their hair is perfect and their dresses are flawless and Beca’s still clutching her trophy in her hand and Chloe couldn’t care less.

She thinks she sees lights flashing — presumably the photographers around them have caught wind of this passionate and unexpected embrace — but Chloe couldn’t care less.

She kisses Beca, and Beca smiles against her mouth.

Aubrey will call her in the morning to gripe about her making the front page (just of the regional Style section, but still) and how it isn’t fair that everyone she went to school with is getting famous except for her. Emily will text her a thousand heart emojis followed by about two thousand exclamation points. Her parents will send her an email with one of the nicer versions of the soon-to-be-infamous-photo with a note telling her that they’re proud of her, and they would love if she could bring Beca home with her some time for a visit. She’ll get bombarded with texts and emails and phone calls from people she’s long since lost touch with, from high school classmates to ex-partners to former employers, all anxious to get her side of the story, itching to get pulled into the celebrity gossip. She’ll have to learn to field phone calls from probing reporters, how to dodge paparazzi on the street, how to stop squealing every time one of Beca’s songs comes on the radio.

Chloe will move to California and move in with Beca, get a job as a choir teacher in some charter school in the city. They’ll get a dog. They’ll get married and have two kids. Beca will go on to produce soundtracks for scores, and a half-dozen solo records, on top of the collaborating work she does with established artists.

All of that will happen for them.

But for right now, Chloe kisses Beca under the snapping lights of the paparazzi, with a Grammy sandwiched between their bodies, and she is happy.

**

Raquel laughs into the phone, her voice light and easy and relaxed. _“One year after dating me and now you’re getting name-checked in Grammy acceptance speeches? Damn, Beale. What an upgrade.”_

Chloe laughs, too, and brings a hand up to cover her eyes. She’s glad Raquel can’t see the way she’s blushing, because she would surely never be able to live it down. “Shut up,” she mumbles, but she’s grinning about as wide as she’s ever grinned.

She’s sitting at Beca’s kitchen table in a t-shirt and not much else, her feet tucked up under her, her arms wrapped around her bent knee. She’s smiling widely. She hasn’t stopped smiling since last night.

Beca’s still asleep in her bed, because it’s only 7 in the morning and that’s an unreasonable hour for _most_ people to get up, but for Beca it’s like asking her to give up eating chocolate. Rousing Beca Mitchell at this early hour is a task best left to someone who values their life a lot less than Chloe does.

Chloe, for her part, is still 1 hour ahead of California, time zone-wise, and she wakes up earlier than this for school every day anyway, so rather than stay in bed and fidget with her hands she decided to get up and put on a pot of coffee, just for something to do.

(They didn’t spend the night together. If they had, and if Chloe had woken up in Beca’s bed this morning, she almost _certainly_ would have rolled over onto her side, curled herself into Beca’s body, and slept for another four hours. They didn’t spend the night together, even though they both kind of really wanted to. But they agreed last night that they should go slow, that going slow was better, after everything that happened between them, and with everything they still needed to discuss. So they didn’t spend the night together.)

(They just stayed up until well-past two in the morning kissing, completely horizontal, on Beca’s plush couch. But that’s not the same thing.)

 _“I’m glad you guys found each other again,”_ Raquel says, and Chloe has to shake herself to dispel the pleasant images from her mind. She has to focus. _“I’m glad you’re working through it. I really am.”_ And the crazy thing is, Chloe _believes_ her. Because Raquel has always been too good for her, has always been a better person than Chloe could ever hope to be, has always had the sort of calm, quiet love and acceptance that Chloe envies.

She says she’s happy for them and Chloe believes her, because for one thing Raquel isn’t the type to get jealous, and for another because Chloe knows that all she ever really wanted was for Chloe to be happy. And yeah, maybe she wanted Chloe to be happy with her, first and foremost, but barring that… all she ever really wanted was for Chloe to be happy.

Chloe understands that sentiment, because she feels exactly the same way. She knows that the lives they have now aren’t what either of them ever expected, but… she hopes Raquel can find her own kind of peaceful happiness. However it may come about.

“Yeah,” Chloe says softly, resting her cheek on her bent knee. “Yeah, I mean… it’s not perfect. It’s still… we still have a lot of things to talk about. But we’re… we decided to try, so. Yeah. We’re trying.”

When Raquel speaks next, there’s a smile in her voice. _“She always felt sort of inevitable, didn’t she?”_

Chloe takes a breath to steady herself. “You know that when we were together I wasn’t in love with her. I didn’t want to be with her, I wasn’t still pining… I loved _you,_ Raquel, and only you. I was all-in, with us.”

 _“I know, Chloe,”_ Raquel’s words are quiet, and though they might twinge with a little bit of melancholy, they aren’t exactly sad. _“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”_

“I know. But… I wanted you to know. What we had was real.”

_“I know it was. And what you have with her is real, too.”_

The sound of feet padding softly on hardwood floors, and Chloe looks up from her own hands and toward the hallway that leads to Beca’s room.

Beca’s hair is a mess, the way it always is in the morning. She’s rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning loudly, arms stretched high above her head. Chloe watches her with the kind of open hunger she never would have allowed herself two weeks ago, and when Beca finally blinks her eyes open fully, she smiles so softly that every part of Chloe melts.

Beca walks by her, stopping just long enough to press a slow, lazy kiss to Chloe’s smiling mouth, before she pulls away with a wink.

“Yeah,” Chloe says softly as she watches Beca glide into the kitchen. “It is.”

_“Did something distracting walk by?”_

“Hmm?” Chloe hums, only sort of half-listening to the conversation she’s meant to be taking part in.

Raquel chuckles. _“You have to go, don’t you?”_

Chloe bites her lip as Beca comes out of the kitchen, two cups of coffee in hand. She sets them both down gingerly on the table before moving behind Chloe, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and squeezing her tightly. “I’m really sorry, Elle,” Chloe says, even though she’s only half-sorry. She sinks back into Beca’s hug and allows her chest to swell with the sort of light feeling she never thought she’d experience.

_“Don’t be. Go be with your girl. Call me when you get back to Denver, and we can dish about all the hot new things going on in your life.”_

Chloe laughs and wonders how on Earth she ever got so lucky. How was it possible that one single person could know so many extraordinary people in their lifetime? She feels selfish, like she’s hoarding away the best people for herself, like she’s keeping every truly good person in this world close to her because she can, because she treasures the people she knows, because she doesn’t want to share.

She feels a little selfish, but then again, she never pretended to be a perfect person.

“I’ll call you when I get back to Denver,” she promises, before they exchange soft goodbyes and she drops her phone to her lap without a second thought.

“Who was that?” Beca asks, her nose tucked behind Chloe’s ear as she presses a soft kiss to Chloe’s neck.

Chloe purrs at the sensation. “My ex-girlfriend.”

“Oh really?” Beca teases, walking around the chair and settling herself firmly in Chloe’s lap. She throws her arms around Chloe’s shoulders. “Is she trying to win you back? Now that you’re famous, of course.”

“Yes,” Chloe teases, bringing their foreheads together, brushing her nose against Beca’s. She darts up, planting a quick kiss to Beca’s lips. When she pulls away she’s smiling wryly. “Is that a problem, for you?”

Beca hums and drags her fingers through the hair at the base of Chloe’s scalp. Chloe arches into the touch instinctively. “Well,” she says with an air of gravitas, “she has to know that I’m not about to let you go without a fight.”

For the second time in as many days, Chloe beams so wide it feels like her face might crack in two. “You better not,” she whispers, fingers curled in the neck of Beca’s t-shirt. She yanks her down roughly, sealing their lips together in a kiss that takes her breath away.

She thinks Beca might be a little breathless, too.

~~

Later, as they lie side-by-side in Beca’s wide expanse of a bed, fingers loosely intertwined on the sheets between them, Beca’s hand drawing lazy patterns on the bare skin of Chloe’s lower back where her shirt has ridden up, just a little bit, Chloe has to smile at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. “Do you know how much energy we could have saved if we’d just _talked_ to each other, back then?” She asks into the quiet air.

Beca hums and presses a soft kiss to the line of Chloe’s jaw. “Life is a journey, you know,” she says simply, her eyes closed, her entire body relaxed. “We ended up in the same place we would have if we’d done this years ago.” She blinks, eyes opening and focusing on the smooth skin of Chloe’s neck, the soft flush of her cheeks, the way her eyes seem to dance with the late morning sunlight. “But if we had done this years ago, you know, I wouldn’t have made this kickass album. And you wouldn’t be your students’ favorite teacher.” She’s smiling as she says it, and Chloe is smiling, too, but she knows that there’s a hint of something to Beca’s words that’s something less-than-happy. She knows, because she feels it, too; a sort of wistful sorrow for the lives they might have had, once upon a time.

She pushes her body impossibly closer to Beca’s, so that they lay completely pressed against each other. “We could have still had all of that too, Becs,” she whispers, bringing a hand up to brush at the bridge of Beca’s nose.

Beca’s smile turns a little sadder. “Yeah,” she whispers back, “I know. We should have talked about it. Like… _honestly_ talked about it.” She blinks a few times, and Chloe knows that she’s doing it to try and stop herself from crying. It may be pointless, but still she tries. “But I was so scared of losing you. So scared that if I brought it up it would change everything, that… that we would _lose_ _everything_.” She presses a soft kiss to Chloe’s lips and rests their foreheads together. When she speaks next, her words barely ghost against Chloe’s mouth. Her eyes are closed, and Chloe allows her own eyes to close, too. “I didn’t want to lose you,” Beca murmurs.

“I know,” Chloe says, because she does. Because she recognizes the terror in those words. Because she can sympathize so completely with Beca’s situation. Because it was her own, as well.

Beca shakes her head ever so slightly. She pulls back a little bit, giving herself more distance, allowing herself to look at Chloe more directly. “I was so stupid, Chlo. There were so many things I could have done differently, I just… I mean, for starters, I only let myself talk about what we were doing whenever you brought it up. I only broached a conversation after you had initiated it. And if I had just—”

Chloe presses a finger to her lips to stop her from talking. “We’ll have time for all of that, Beca,” she says quietly. “We don’t need to talk about it now.” Beca nods, her eyes never leaving Chloe’s searching gaze. Chloe laughs a little, under her breath. “It’s funny,” she explains when Beca frowns. “You felt like you were following my lead, and I felt like I was following yours.” She pauses for a second and slips her hand around to cup the back of Beca’s neck. “ _God_ , we were stupid.”

Beca laughs. “We still _are_ stupid.”

“Hey, speak for yourself. I’m a _teacher_. It’s basically _illegal_ for me to be stupid.”

“Well, _I_ think you’re stupid.” Beca pushes herself up on her elbow, letting her body hover over Chloe’s. She slides her leg in between Chloe’s thighs, smooths a hand over the flat plane of Chloe’s stomach, runs the pad of her thumb over the high rise of Chloe’s cheekbone.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Beca says with a smile and a long, lingering kiss. “Stupid into me.”

Chloe groans loudly. “Oh my God, you’re such a dork. Do your fans know that you’re really just a huge, secret dork?”

“What do you mean, ‘ _secret’_?” Beca scoffs. “This has been out in the open for a long time, babe.”

Chloe blinks up at her, the smile slipping slowly from her face. “You called me babe.”

Beca swallows. “Oh, shit, sorry. I won’t—”

“No.” Chloe shakes her head. She runs a hand up Beca’s bare arm to land softly on her shoulder, just underneath the sleeve of her shirt. “No, I liked it. You should keep doing it.”

Beca bites her lip. “Yeah?” She asks quietly, bending down just a little bit closer, letting her torso rest fully on Chloe’s.

Chloe nods. “Yeah.”

**

Her initial license is only valid for four years in Colorado. If she wants to be a full-time teacher in Denver, she’ll have to do a lot more work to stick around.

But, you know. Chloe never really planned on staying.

So when the four years come to an end, Chloe moves again.

This time to LA.

This time for good.

**


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The first time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, she says it as a joke._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She’s back! By popular demand.
> 
> I decided to write a short little Epilogue/Coda for you all; since we spent so much of this story wallowing in angst, and that was pretty exhausting. Thought you all deserved something light. It’s shorter than any of the chapters, just a few thousand words, a little peek into their lives post-story.
> 
> Some one-shots regarding their time together in LA will follow, because I’ve gotten some prompt requests for that. So keep an eye on my [ tumblr](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/) if you want to see those.

____________________

She doesn’t move in with Beca. Not for a while, at least.

It takes about a year, because these things take time, because these things are not things that can be resolved by one grand romantic gesture, by one beautiful speech that honestly felt like it was torn straight from some primetime NBC drama (though Beca swears she didn’t plagiarize). These things take time.

So she doesn’t move in with Beca. Not right away.

It takes about a year. A year of dates, of phone calls, of quietly reestablishing their relationship. A year that begins with them seeing each other a couple times a week at first, then almost every day, and which then builds to a constant sort of accidental cohabitation. A year of slowly relearning everything about each other. A year of spending the night, a year of waking up sometimes with each other, sometimes without. A year of struggles, a few arguments, and a lot of long, drawn out, late-night conversations.

But it’s also the best year of Chloe’s entire life.

Someone might have told her once that it was irrational of her to just pick up and move to California so soon after rekindling her relationship with Beca. Someone might have told her that she was completely crazy for upending her life on the basis of what might as well have been a whim and a prayer. Someone might have told her that she was being too hasty, that she wasn’t thinking things through, that she was jumping to decisions and acting with her heart, not her head.

Someone might have told her, once, and they might even have been right. But Chloe doesn’t care about any of that.

She moves to Los Angeles and she never looks back.

____________________

By the time Beca asks Chloe to move in with her, it’s basically a redundant request. _Technically_ Chloe still has her own apartment, but it’s more of a formality, at this point. Her name is on the lease, her mail gets delivered to the address, but she’s hardly ever there.

They’ve been together for a year, Chloe’s been living in LA for eight months, and for the past two months or so she’s taken up a near-permanent residence in Beca’s home. She already owns half of the shoe space, half of the space in the bathroom cabinet, and half of the drawers in Beca’s dresser. Her keys have a permanent spot by the door, her soy milk a permanent spot in Beca’s fridge. Her work schedule is stuck on the wall next to Beca’s calendar. Beca’s Netflix queue is full of Chloe’s favorite shows, Chloe’s favorite movies. All but Chloe’s least-favorite outfits have migrated to Beca’s closet, and all of the books she’s currently reading have found a place on Beca’s bedside table.

She has her own place, but it’s basically just a formality. A construct. Something that allows them to pretend like they’re taking things very slowly, like Chloe is maintaining her own personal space for… independence, maybe? She can’t even remember why it _mattered_ so much to her, eight months ago, that she has her own place separate from Beca’s.

She certainly doesn’t feel that way any more.

So she isn’t surprised when Beca asks her to move in with her.

“When is your lease up?” Beca asks her over dinner one night, seemingly out of the blue.

Chloe pauses, her fork half-way to her mouth. “End of next month,” she says, carefully placing her fork back on her plate. “Why?”

“You should give up your place. Move in with me.” Chloe bites her lip to hide her smile as Beca flushes. She continues to talk, her words getting more and more nervous the longer she speaks. “Because, you know… you basically live with me already. You stay with me more nights than you go back to your place. And I live closer to the school than you do, so it would be easier for you to get to work. And we could split the groceries. And there are the… um… the plants, that we have.”

Chloe bites her lip harder and swallows a laugh. “The plants?”

“Yes,” Beca nods seriously. “They miss you, when you aren’t around. They want you to be there every night, and every morning. And… they have trouble sleeping, when you’re gone. Everything feels bigger and darker. And that’s not good for them. They need… a lot of sunlight. And you’re basically pure sunshine, so—”

Chloe slides her hand on top of Beca’s, effectively silencing her. “I miss the plants when I’m gone, too,” she says quietly.

Beca’s gaze softens, a slow smile finally spreading across her features. “You do?”

“Yes.” Chloe nods. “You know I really love the plants.”

“They love you, too.”

Chloe chuckles. “I would love to move in with them. As long as you’re there, too.”

Beca’s breath wavers, just a little. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I would really like that.” Chloe slides her fingers between Beca’s. “But I won’t be able to afford half the rent. Not with where you live. Not with my current salary.”

“You don’t need to pay anything, Chlo. That’s not—”

“You have to let me pay for _something_ , Beca. Some of the expenses. That’s what you do, when you live with someone. You split the costs.”

Beca chews on the inside of her cheek. “You could pay for the Netflix?”

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Okay, we can hammer out the details later. But I’m not just moving in with you and letting you pay for everything that we own or everything that we do. I would like to be an equally-contributing partner in this relationship.”

“You _are_ , Chloe,” Beca says quietly. “You know that you are.”

Chloe smiles. “I know. But I also know you made more money this past year than I’ll make in the next five.” Beca reddens. “And while it’s _really_ nice having a rich girlfriend who can take me out to nice dinners like this, we can’t just… isolate ourselves with the Hollywood elite and forget what it’s like to live on a budget. I’m not going to stop teaching just because I technically _can_. And we can’t just fly first class every time we go somewhere and rent out private villas and buy a dozen cars and we can’t just buy the biggest house we can find just for the sake of owning it. I don’t want us to be those kinds of people. I never liked the bourgeoisie. I don’t want to become like them.”

Beca smirks. “All those Russian Lit classes really promoted your anti-capitalist leanings, didn’t they?”

Chloe flicks the inside of her wrist in warning. “Be quiet, or I won’t move in with you.”

Beca grabs Chloe’s hand and brings it to her lips, pressing a soft kiss her knuckles. “Sorry,” she murmurs into the soft skin there, “you already agreed. No take-backs.”

____________________

The first time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, she says it as a joke. Probably in reference to _Arrested Development_ (a.k.a. Beca’s second favorite TV show of all time), though Chloe doesn’t think to ask her about it until much later.

The first time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, they’re in a grocery store, some nondescript chain that Chloe can no longer remember the name of. She wonders if it’s bad, that she doesn’t remember exactly where her girlfriend asks her to marry her for the first time, but since it doesn’t really _count_ as a real proposal (there’s no ring and they move on from it so quickly that it can’t _possibly_ count as a real proposal), she forgives herself.

They’re in a grocery store, shopping for something to make for dinner the following night, when Chloe catches a glimpse of Beca’s face, smoldering through heavy eye makeup on the cover of a magazine next to the checkout line. And, as per her tradition, she immediately grabs every copy she can get her hands on and shoves them into their shopping cart.

Beca groans. “Chloe, please. Do you have to do this _every_ time? It’s _really_ embarrassing.”

“Sorry, Becs, but you don’t exactly have a choice. If I want to buy a magazine that has my girlfriend’s face on the cover, you bet your ass I’m going to do it. And you can’t stop me.” She glances down at the obscenely large stack she’s just commandeered. She starts, and bends to pick one up. “Holy shit,” Chloe mutters, bringing the pages close to her face. She turns it around and holds it at arms-length for Beca to see. “Can we get this _framed_? You look _amazing_ here, Becs.” She turns it back around and squints at it closely. “Super young, too. Like you’re just out of college.”

Beca laughs, puts a hand on Chloe’s forearm, and says, “Ha, marry me!”

Chloe blinks once in surprise, but Beca is still laughing, so Chloe laughs with her, and they move on. Beca takes her hand and leads her to the shortest queue a few spaces over and they don’t mention it again. Chloe drops the magazine back in their cart (the woman checking them out gives Chloe a weird look when she puts a stack of 15 of the same magazine onto the belt) and they just… move on.

But Chloe doesn’t forget about it. They’ve been living together for 6 months at this point and though she _knows_ that that isn’t a lot of time, she’s known Beca for almost 10 years now and it’s just… hard not to think about marriage potentially being in her future. When Beca says “marry me,” Chloe starts to think about what that would be like.

She decides she isn’t against the idea.

**

The second time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, it’s an accident.

If Chloe were to describe it delicately, she would say that Beca sort of loses control of her words while they’re in the midst of an intimate moment and just kind of blurts it out.

But if Chloe were to describe it in slightly more detail, it would go something like this:

Beca’s hands in her hair. Chloe’s mouth on her. Beca’s nails digging into her scalp. Chloe’s fingers leaving bruising patterns on the soft skin of Beca’s thighs. Beca arching off the bed. Beca’s breath catching in her throat, an unintelligible string of curse words and glowing praise and Chloe’s name intercut with “Jesus” and “fuck” and “love you” and, right before her climax, one long: “Jesus fucking Christ Chloe I love you shit marry me please.”

And then, after it all, Beca flushing red with embarrassment, mumbling some sort of half-hearted excuse that makes Chloe laugh a deep, booming laugh that warms her all the way down to the tips of her toes. Beca’s murmured awkwardness, her mortification. Chloe nipping at her neck and her jaw, whispering teasing words hot into her ear.

So, the second time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, it’s an accident. A funny accident, to be sure, but an accident all the same.

**

The third time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, well… technically it’s also an accident, but Chloe doesn’t care anymore. Because it’s been 3 years and 3 years is an eternity when you’re young but it’s not that long when you’re old, and while Chloe isn’t exactly _old_ she isn’t exactly _young_ , either. She’s just crossed over from 30 to 31, and though she feels as young as she ever has, she also knows that a lot of things have changed over the past 10 years of her life. She’s known Beca for practically all of her adult life and while there have been a lot of twists and turns, a lot of bumpy stretches, and many years of immeasurable hurt… Chloe wouldn’t change it for anything.

She’s 31 and not getting any younger. So the third time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, she takes stock of her life, of _their_ life _together_ , and she thinks it through. She thinks about their apartment — huge and sprawling and _way_ too big for just the two of them. She thinks about their dog, a tiny little bulldog named Apple (after Gwyneth Paltrow’s first child, obviously) who sniffs at Beca’s shoes every time she kicks them off in the front hall and who barks to be picked up whenever they’re cuddling on the couch because her tiny little legs aren’t yet big enough to propel her onto any of their furniture. She thinks about the house Beca has promised to buy her, and thinks about the way she had to negotiate the square footage down because _“Who needs a house as big as Rihanna’s, Beca? Honestly.”_

(To which Beca had replied, with a grumble and a small frown: _“Clearly Rihanna does.”_ But the disagreement hadn’t lasted long, because disagreements never did, with them. Beca caved and agreed to something much smaller and more manageable because she would do anything for Chloe, really, and if Chloe wanted a house that was smaller and more environmentally-friendly and more intimate then she would buy her something smaller and more environmentally-friendly and more intimate.)

Chloe’s 31, and Beca’s a little younger, but for the first time in her life she feels like they’re completely on the same page. Chloe is teaching music to children, a passion she didn’t know she had until she moved to Denver on a whim, all those years ago, but a passion that has only grown in the intervening years. Beca is writing and producing and creating music, just like she always wanted to. She’s set to collaborate on the newest Duffer Brothers project with Jesse next year.

She’s 31, and Beca’s a little younger, but already they’ve been invited to more weddings than they can count. First it was Cynthia Rose and her girlfriend-now-wife, Mariel; then Emily and Benji the following summer; and then Jesse and his girlfriend-now-wife, Sophie; then Lilly; then Jessica and Ashley. Hell, even _Aubrey’s_ found someone willing to deal with her whole mess of crazy for the rest of her life. Her wedding is set for next July.

The point is, Chloe’s 31, and Beca’s a little younger, but they’ve been together for what feels like a lifetime. They’ve been together a fair deal longer than some of their other friends who have already signed marriage certificates and held elaborate wedding ceremonies, and… well. They’ve been together for what feels like a lifetime.

And Chloe wants a lifetime more.

The third time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, it’s for no particular reason.

It’s early on a Tuesday morning, and Chloe has to be at school in an hour and Beca has to be at the studio in two, but they’re still lounging around their apartment, basking in their little quiet moment of solitary domesticity. It’s so rare that they get these soft moments together, so when they do, they try to embrace them fully.

As is the norm with mornings such as these, their conversation pretty quickly returns to a topic that’s been hounding them for several months.

Beca yawns and stretches out on the couch. “I got a call from your mom, the other day,” She says, her voice light and unbothered.

Chloe laughs, already knowing where this is headed. “Still on your case about starting the next generation?”

Beca rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her coffee. “She seems to think it’s your duty as the oldest child to give them grandchildren before they turn 60. She even _heavily_ suggested that if we don’t start looking into kids soon she’s going to have your grandmother call us, too. To double the guilt.”

Chloe hums under her breath, picking up the newspaper Beca had discarded earlier. “Well, I guess she’ll just have to learn to be patient, then,” she says as she idly unfolds it, picking a page basically at random to begin reading. “She might not be happy with the fact that we’re dragging our feet, but my parents aren’t going anywhere soon.” She glances up at Beca and winks at her. “Few more years won’t kill them.”

Beca scoffs and shakes her head. “Oh please, we aren’t ‘ _dragging our feet_.’ You know I’d marry you tomorrow.”

And Chloe tilts her head to the side, purses her lips, and, without looking up from her newspaper, she shrugs and says: “Sure.”

Beca chokes on nothing, jerking up so hard that her knee slams against the underside of their coffee table. She grunts in pain but immediately ignores it, turning instead to stare at Chloe, wide-eyed and spluttering. “ _What_?” She hisses.

“You want to get married,” Chloe says calmly. She turns the page of her paper. “So let’s get married.”

“I…” Beca blinks a few times, her mouth open and seemingly unable to speak.

Chloe glances up at her. She lets her face break into a wide and teasing grin. “Or were you kidding again?”

Beca swallows thickly. “Hold… just. Hold on.” She leaps from the couch and sprints off in the direction of their bedroom, her sock-clad feet slipping a little on the hardwood floors. Chloe stands from her place at the kitchen table, swallowing her mirth, her eyes gleaming as Beca reappears from down the hall and comes skidding to a stop in front of her, slightly out of breath, small velvet box clutched in her right hand.

She shakes her head like Chloe is being _particularly_ exasperating but still she can’t keep the thousand-watt smile off of her lips. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes glisten. “You take all the surprise out of _everything_ , Chlo,” she half-complains. She flips open the box and holds it out in front of her. “I was waiting for the right moment.”

Chloe smiles back at her with barely-contained euphoria. As much fun as she’s having teasing Beca mercilessly, the sight an engagement ring sitting in the middle of the small box in Beca’s outstretched hand — demure and unassuming and _precisely_ the kind of thing she would have picked out for herself, if Beca had asked — makes her stomach flutter and her heart start skipping beats. “I think this was the _perfect_ moment. Don’t you?”

Beca grumbles and drops down to one knee, but Chloe grabs her by the wrist and yanks her up again so that they’re standing flush against each other, chest-to-chest. “Get up, Becs,” she laughs, cupping the other woman’s cheeks with soft, yielding hands. “I’ve already said yes.”

Beca chuckles. “Well… It’s the ceremony of the thing.”

Chloe kisses her to stop her from saying anything else. They pull away several moments later and Chloe holds out her left hand, letting Beca slip the simple band onto her ring finger. Chloe beams down at it. “How long have you had this?” She asks, running a thumb over the small stone affixed to its center.

Beca shakes her head. “An… embarrassingly long amount of time.” Chloe quirks an eyebrow and Beca shrugs. “I kept chickening out.”

Chloe laughs and uses the fingers of her right hand to scratch lightly at the back of Beca’s neck. “I’ve had mine six months. Have you had yours longer?”

Beca balks, her mouth dropping open comically. “You what now?”

Chloe bites her lip to stifle a laugh. “I have a ring hidden in my sock drawer.”

“I…” Beca shakes her head. “ _Chloe_ …”

“Well, if you weren’t gonna ask me soon I was going to have to take matters into my own hands, wasn’t I?”

“ _God_ , I love you.”

Chloe beams. “I love you, too.”

So, the third time Beca asks Chloe to marry her, it’s kind of an accident, but Chloe doesn’t care. She says yes either way, accident or not.

____________________


End file.
